Screech

Yes, it exists. Yes, it's graphic. Yes, you'll be able to download it soon.

The sportsbook Website BetUS.com is claiming to be the unlikely frontrunner in an even unlikelier bidding war over the distribution rights to a homemade sex tape featuring Dustin "Screech" Diamond.

Dirk [before he became Dirk-what was his name?]: Jack, I was thinking about my name, y’know?
Jack Horner: Yeah?
Dirk: I was wondering if you had any ideas.
Jack: I’ve got a few, but you tell me.
Dirk: Well, my idea was, y’know, I want a name, I want it so it can cut glass, y’know, razor sharp.
Jack:: Tell me.
Dirk: When I close my eyes, I see this thing, a sign, I see this name in bright blue neon lights with a purple outline. And this name is so bright and so sharp that the sign, it just blows up because the name is so powerful…it says, “Dirk Diggler.”

"You don't listen to losers like your know-it-all teacher. She wants you to go slow, but it's the fastest who gets paid, and it's the fastest who gets laid. "

-Reese Bobby

Max Boot: Muslims' Complicity With Violence

Unless it clamps down vigorously on fanaticism, the Islamic world risks validating its worst caricatures. Max BootSeptember 27, 2006

EVER SINCE 9/11, a dark view of Islam has been gaining currency on what might be called the Western street. This view holds that, contrary to the protestations of our political leaders — who claim that acts of terrorism are being carried out by a minority of extremists — the real problem lies with Islam itself. In this interpretation, Islam is not a religion of peace but of war, and its 1.2 billion adherents will never rest until all of humanity is either converted, subjugated or simply annihilated. Is the war on terrorism really a "clash of civilizations"? The overreaction to Pope Benedict XVI's relatively innocuous remarks at the University of Regensburg on Sept. 12 would seem to lend weight to this alarming notion. As part of a plea for combining reason with religion, the pope cited a 14th century Byzantine emperor who condemned Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman" because of "his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The pope subsequently made clear that these were not his own views, but this did not stop an explosion of animosity across the Muslim world. Amid calls from angry clerics to "hunt down" the holy father (a.k.a. "the dog of Rome" and the "worshiper of the cross"), various hotheads have taken to the streets and attacked Christian churches. This recalls the over-the-top outcry this year after a Danish newspaper dared to print cartoons depicting Muhammad as an instigator of violence. Muslim spokesmen claim that these are unconscionable slurs. Yet, while demanding respect for their own religion, too many Muslims accord too little respect to competing faiths or even to competing brands of their own faith.Where are the demonstrations in the Muslim street when the president of Iran denies the Holocaust and calls for the destruction of Israel? Or when Palestinian kidnappers force two Western journalists to convert to Islam at gunpoint? Or when Sunni terrorists in Iraq bomb Shiite mosques and slaughter hundreds of worshipers? All too many Islamic leaders prefer to harp on the supposed sins of the "infidels," however exaggerated or even fictionalized (no, the CIA didn't bomb the World Trade Center to create an excuse for invading Afghanistan), rather than focusing on the problems within their own umma (community). And yet it would be a mistake to conclude that the woes of Islamic society today, serious as they are, are endemic to the religion itself.It is true that, alone of the world's major faiths, Islam was founded by a prophet who used force to win converts. "I was ordered to fight all men until they say, 'There is no god but Allah,' " Muhammad proclaimed in his farewell address to his followers in AD 632. Countless Muslims since then have followed the path of jihad — literally, "exertion in the path of Allah" but usually taken as an injunction for waging holy war. But countless Muslims also have been willing to trade with unbelievers, to live peaceably alongside them, to learn from them and even to enter into military alliances with them against Muslim rivals. Religions are not monolithic. They have no fixed, eternal identity. Until the 18th century, Christianity was a militant faith whose adherents did not hesitate to kill "heathens." Throughout the Middle Ages, Islamic states usually offered greater tolerance to religious minorities and were more open to secular learning than their Christian neighbors. Even now, most Muslim countries — from Senegal to Indonesia — are far more pluralistic and much less fundamentalist than Iran or Saudi Arabia. And even in the most militant Muslim societies, clerics are able to maintain a rigid orthodoxy only by force. Left to their own devices, the Saudi or Iranian people would opt for a less monastic existence — a danger that the guardians of official morality are keenly aware of.The real enemy we face is not Islam per se but a violent offshoot known as Islamism, which is rooted, to be sure, in the Koran but which also finds inspiration in such modern Western ideologies as fascism, Nazism and communism. Its most successful exponents — from Hassan Banna and Sayyid Qutb to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden — are hardly orthodox interpreters of Islam. They are power-mad intellectuals in the mold of a Lenin or a Hitler. The problem is that the rest of the Muslim world, by not doing more to curb the radicals — whether out of fear or sympathy — lends credence to the most objectionable caricatures of their faith.

Jennifer Loven of the AP

QUESTION: Thank you, sir.
Even after hearing that one of the major conclusions of the national intelligence estimate in April was that the Iraq war has fueled terror growth around the world, why have you continued to say that the Iraq war has made this country safer?
BUSH: You want to start?
KARZAI: Go ahead, please.
(LAUGHTER)
BUSH: I, of course, read the key judgments on the NIE. I agree with their conclusion that, because of our successes against the leadership of Al Qaida, the enemy is becoming more diffuse and independent.
BUSH: I'm not surprised the enemy is exploiting the situation in Iraq and using it as a propaganda tool to try to recruit more people to their murderous ways.
Some people have, you know, guessed what's in the report and have concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree. I think it's naive. I think it's a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe.
The terrorists fight us in Iraq for a reason; they want to try to stop a young democracy from developing, just like they're trying to fight this young democracy in Afghanistan.
And they use it as a recruitment tool because they understand the stakes. They understand what will happen to them when we defeat them in Iraq.
BUSH: You know, to suggest that if we weren't in Iraq we would see a rosier scenario, with fewer extremists joining the radical movement, requires us to ignore 20 years of experience.
We weren't in Iraq when we got attacked on September the 11th. We weren't in Iraq and thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps inside your country, Mr. President. We weren't in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993.
KARZAI: Yes, sir.
BUSH: We weren't in Iraq when they bombed the Cole.
KARZAI: Yes, sir.
BUSH: We weren't in Iraq when they blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions. They kill in order to achieve their objectives.
You know, in the past, Osama bin Laden used Somalia as an excuse for people to join his jihadist movement.
BUSH: In the past, they used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was a convenient way to try to recruit people to their jihadist movement.
They've used all kinds of excuses.
This government is going to do whatever it takes to protect this homeland. We're not going to let their excuses stop us from staying on the offense.
The best way to protect America is to defeat these killers overseas so we do not have to face them here at home.
We're not going to let lies and propaganda by the enemy dictate how we win this war.
Now, you know what's interesting about the NIE? It was an intelligence report done last April. As I understand, the conclusions -- the evidence on the conclusions reached was stopped being gathered on February -- at the end of February.
BUSH: And here we are coming down the stretch in an election campaign and it's on the front page of your newspapers. Isn't that interesting? Somebody's taken it upon themselves to leak classified information for political purposes.
I talked to John Negroponte today, the DNI. You know, I think it's a bad habit for our government to declassify every time there's a leak, because it means it's going to be hard to get good product out of our analysts. Those of you who've been around here long enough know what I'm talking about.
But once again there's a leak out of our government, coming right down the stretch in this campaign in order to create confusion in the minds of the American people.
BUSH: In my judgment, that's why they leaked it.
And so we're going to -- I told the DNI to declassify this document. You can read it for yourself. It will stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq; you know, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy.
And so John Negroponte, the DNI, is going to declassify the document as quickly as possible -- declassify the key judgments for you to read yourself.
And he'll do so in such a way that we'll be able to protect sources and methods of -- that our intelligence community uses.
And then everybody can draw their own conclusions about what the report says.
Thank you.

http://www.thebigrockcandymountain.com/bigrock.html

Just down the road apiece...

Clinton on Fox

The real Clinton emerges

From behind the benign façade and the tranquilizing smile, the real Bill Clinton emerged Sunday during Chris Wallace’s interview on Fox News Channel. There he was on live television, the man those who have worked for him have come to know – the angry, sarcastic, snarling, self-righteous, bombastic bully, roused to a fever pitch. The truer the accusation, the greater the feigned indignation. Clinton jabbed his finger in Wallace’s face, poking his knee, and invading the commentator’s space.
But beyond noting the ex-president’s non-presidential style, it is important to answer his distortions and misrepresentations. His self-justifications constitute a mangling of the truth which only someone who once quibbled about what the “definition of ‘is’ is” could perform.
Clinton told Wallace, “There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down.” Nobody said there was. The point of citing Somalia in the run up to 9-11 is that bin Laden told Fortune Magazine in a 1999 interview that the precipitous American pullout after Black Hawk Down convinced him that Americans would not stand up to armed resistance.
Clinton said conservatives “were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day” after the attack which killed American soldiers. But the real question was whether Clinton would honor the military’s request to be allowed to stay and avenge the attack, a request he denied. The debate was not between immediate withdrawal and a six-month delay. (Then-first lady, now-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) favored the first option, by the way). The fight was over whether to attack or pull out eventually without any major offensive operations.
The president told Wallace, “I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill bin Laden.” But actually, the 9-11 Commission was clear that the plan to kidnap Osama was derailed by Sandy Berger and George Tenet because Clinton had not yet made a finding authorizing his assassination. They were fearful that Osama would die in the kidnapping and the U.S. would be blamed for using assassination as an instrument of policy.
Clinton claims “the CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible [for the Cole bombing] while I was there.” But he could replace or direct his employees as he felt. His helplessness was, as usual, self-imposed.
Why didn’t the CIA and FBI realize the extent of bin Laden’s involvement in terrorism? Because Clinton never took the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center sufficiently seriously. He never visited the site and his only public comment was to caution against “over-reaction.” In his pre-9/11 memoirs, George Stephanopoulos confirms that he and others on the staff saw it as a “failed bombing” and noted that it was far from topic A at the White House. Rather than the full-court press that the first terror attack on American soil deserved, Clinton let the investigation be handled by the FBI on location in New York without making it the national emergency it actually was.
In my frequent phone and personal conversations with both Clintons in 1993, there was never a mention, not one, of the World Trade Center attack. It was never a subject of presidential focus.
Failure to grasp the import of the 1993 attack led to a delay in fingering bin Laden and understanding his danger. This, in turn, led to our failure to seize him when Sudan evicted him and also to our failure to carry through with the plot to kidnap him. And, it was responsible for the failure to “certify” him as the culprit until very late in the Clinton administration.
The former president says, “I worked hard to try to kill him.” If so, why did he notify Pakistan of our cruise-missile strike in time for them to warn Osama and allow him to escape? Why did he refuse to allow us to fire cruise missiles to kill bin Laden when we had the best chance, by far, in 1999? The answer to the first question — incompetence; to the second — he was paralyzed by fear of civilian casualties and by accusations that he was wagging the dog. The 9/11 Commission report also attributes the 1999 failure to the fear that we would be labeled trigger-happy having just bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by mistake.
President Clinton assumes that criticism of his failure to kill bin Laden is a “nice little conservative hit job on me.” But he has it backwards. It is not because people are right-wingers that they criticize him over the failure to prevent 9/11. It was his failure to catch bin Laden that drove them to the right wing.
The ex-president is fully justified in laying eight months of the blame for the failure to kill or catch bin Laden at the doorstep of George W. Bush. But he should candidly acknowledge that eight years of blame fall on him.
One also has to wonder when the volcanic rage beneath the surface of this would-be statesman will cool. When will the chip on his shoulder finally disappear? When will he feel sufficiently secure in his own legacy and his own skin not to boil over repeatedly in private and occasionally even in public?

Agency makes breaking up easier

A German businessman has set up a "separation agency" - a service to inform unsuspecting spouses and lovers their partners no longer want them.
Bernd Dressler will deliver the bad news - for those too scared to do it themselves - for 20 euros (£13) by phone, or for 50 euros (£33) in person.
The efficiency and directness of Mr Dressler's manner has earned him the nickname The Terminator.
The 52-year-old compares his company to a dating agency but "in reverse".
'Only the messenger'
"We have had dating agencies for 30 years. If you want to have a new partnership then you have to quit your previous one.
"I think it's the same market - just in reverse," Mr Dressler told the BBC.
The message can be delivered in a "sympathetic or direct manner". Mr Dressler said that most of his clients do not want any further contact with their ex-partner.
The client is asked to provide three reasons why they want to terminate the relationship - these are then passed on by the agency to the former lover.
"The time is right for this service. Many clients are unhappy in their partnerships and they want to end it in a neutral way," Mr Dressler said.
The former insurance manager said he has been fortunate never to have witnessed any extreme emotional reactions.
"I am only the messenger," he said

For the past six years, what has the Left and the Democratic Party publicly said about our President? -- that he is worse than Hitler, that he and his vice president orchestrated 911, that he is a liar, an idiot, a buffoon and yet an evil genius, that he kills for oil, that he blew up the levees in New Orleans, that he has destroyed American democracy, that he has turned America into a police state, that he and his 'cronies' have stripped Americans of their rights and freedoms, that he is a greater threat to us than a worldwide religious movement whose members targeted and then murdered 3000 Americans on September 11, 2001.
Really, is it any wonder why tin pot dictators like Hugo Chavez think nothing of saying some of the same things while on American soil?
Is there any doubt that much of the Democratic Party and the American Left share his views?

Peggy Noonan has a good one at Opinion Journal today: Answer Chavez

"There is an opportunity for the Democratic Party. Some Democrats responded with spirited indignation the day after Chavez spoke. It was rousing. But Chavez's charges were grave, and he claimed America's abuses could be tracked back a century. If the Democrats seek to speak for America, why not start with a serious and textured response, one that isn't a political blast-back but a high-minded putting forward of facts? This would take guts, and farsightedness. Rebutting a wild-eyed man who says you can find redemption reading Noam Chomsky is a little too much like rebutting a part of your base.
As for the administration, it is so in the habit of asserting, defending and repeating, it barely remembers how to persuade and appeal. It speaks starkly and carries a big stick. It feels so beleaguered on a daily basis, and so snakebit, that even its mildest players have taken refuge in gritting their teeth and tunneling on. They take comfort in this: They think Chavez helps them. See what we're up against? But that's not a response, it's a way not to respond. It doesn't help, because it doesn't even try to cool things down. Which is no good, because the temperature of the world is very high."

Wheres "Shake & Bake"? AFI Top 100 Quotes

1 Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
GONE WITH THE WIND
1939

2 I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.
THE GODFATHER
1972

3 You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.
ON THE WATERFRONT
1954

4 Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
THE WIZARD OF OZ
1939

5 Here's looking at you, kid.
CASABLANCA
1942

6 Go ahead, make my day.
SUDDEN IMPACT
1983

7 All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.
SUNSET BLVD.
1950

8 May the Force be with you.
STAR WARS
1977

9 Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.
ALL ABOUT EVE
1950

10 You talking to me?
TAXI DRIVER
1976

11 What we've got here is failure to communicate.
COOL HAND LUKE
1967

12 I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
APOCALYPSE NOW
1979

13 Love means never having to say you're sorry.
LOVE STORY
1970

14 The stuff that dreams are made of.
THE MALTESE FALCON
1941

15 E.T. phone home.
E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
1982

16 They call me Mister Tibbs!
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
1967

17 Rosebud.
CITIZEN KANE
1941

18 Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
WHITE HEAT
1949

19 I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!
NETWORK
1976

20 Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
CASABLANCA
1942

21 A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
1991

22 Bond. James Bond.
DR. NO
1962

23 There's no place like home.
THE WIZARD OF OZ
1939

24 I am big! It's the pictures that got small.
SUNSET BLVD.
1950

25 Show me the money!
JERRY MAGUIRE
1996

26 Why don't you come up sometime and see me?
SHE DONE HIM WRONG
1933

27 I'm walking here! I'm walking here!
MIDNIGHT COWBOY
1969

28 Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'
CASABLANCA
1942

29 You can't handle the truth!
A FEW GOOD MEN
1992

30 I want to be alone.
GRAND HOTEL
1932

31 After all, tomorrow is another day!
GONE WITH THE WIND
1939

32 Round up the usual suspects.
CASABLANCA
1942

33 I'll have what she's having.
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY
1989

34 You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT
1944

35 You're gonna need a bigger boat.
JAWS
1975

36 Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!
THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE
1948

37 I'll be back.
THE TERMINATOR
1984

38 Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES
1942

39 If you build it, he will come.
FIELD OF DREAMS
1989

40 Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
FORREST GUMP
1994

41 We rob banks.
BONNIE AND CLYDE
1967

42 Plastics.
THE GRADUATE
1967

43 We'll always have Paris.
CASABLANCA
1942

44 I see dead people.
THE SIXTH SENSE
1999

45 Stella! Hey, Stella!
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
1951

46 Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars.
NOW, VOYAGER
1942

47 Shane. Shane. Come back!
SHANE
1953

48 Well, nobody's perfect.
SOME LIKE IT HOT
1959

49 It's alive! It's alive!
FRANKENSTEIN
1931

50 Houston, we have a problem.
APOLLO 13
1995

51 You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?
DIRTY HARRY
1971

52 You had me at "hello."
JERRY MAGUIRE
1996

53 One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.
ANIMAL CRACKERS
1930

54 There's no crying in baseball!
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
1992

55 La-dee-da, la-dee-da.
ANNIE HALL
1977

56 A boy's best friend is his mother.
PSYCHO
1960

57 Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
WALL STREET
1987

58 Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
THE GODFATHER II
1974

59 As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.
GONE WITH THE WIND
1939

60 Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!
SONS OF THE DESERT
1933

61 Say "hello" to my little friend!
SCARFACE
1983

62 What a dump.
BEYOND THE FOREST
1949

63 Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?
THE GRADUATE
1967

64 Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
DR. STRANGELOVE
1964

65 Elementary, my dear Watson.
THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
1939

66 Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape.
PLANET OF THE APES
1968

67 Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
CASABLANCA
1942

68 Here's Johnny!
THE SHINING
1980

69 They're here!
POLTERGEIST
1982

70 Is it safe?
MARATHON MAN
1976

71 Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!
THE JAZZ SINGER
1927

72 No wire hangers, ever!
MOMMIE DEAREST
1981

73 Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?
LITTLE CAESAR
1930

74 Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.
CHINATOWN
1974

75 I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
1951

76 Hasta la vista, baby.
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY
1991

77 Soylent Green is people!
SOYLENT GREEN
1973

78 Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
1968

79 Striker: Surely you can't be serious.
Rumack: I am serious…and don't call me Shirley.
AIRPLANE!
1980

80 Yo, Adrian!
ROCKY
1976

81 Hello, gorgeous.
FUNNY GIRL
1968

82 Toga! Toga!
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE
1978

83 Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.
DRACULA
1931

84 Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.
KING KONG
1933

85 My precious.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: TWO TOWERS
2002

86 Attica! Attica!
DOG DAY AFTERNOON
1975

87 Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!
42ND STREET
1933

88 Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor. Don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we're gonna go, go, go!
ON GOLDEN POND
1981

89 Tell 'em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.
KNUTE ROCKNE ALL AMERICAN
1940

90 A martini. Shaken, not stirred.
GOLDFINGER
1964

91 Who's on first.
THE NAUGHTY NINETIES
1945

92 Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac...It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!
CADDYSHACK
1980

93 Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!
AUNTIE MAME
1958

94 I feel the need - the need for speed!
TOP GUN
1986

95 Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.
DEAD POETS SOCIETY
1989

96 Snap out of it!
MOONSTRUCK
1987

97 My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
1942

98 Nobody puts Baby in a corner.
DIRTY DANCING
1987

99 I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!
WIZARD OF OZ, THE
1939

100 I'm king of the world!
TITANIC
1997

How did they know?

"Terror group threatens Gaza Christians" (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 2006/09/19)Pope III: "A previously unknown group calling itself the Huda [Guidance] Army Organization threatened on Tuesday to target all Christians living in the Gaza Strip unless Pope Benedict XVI apologized for his remarks against Islam and the Prophet Muhammed."We will target all Crusaders in the Gaza Strip," the group said in a leaflet, "until the pope issues an official apology."The group also threatened to attack churches and Christian-owned institutions and homes. "All centers belonging to Crusaders, including churches and institutions, will from now on be targeted," it said. "We will even attack the Crusaders as they sit intoxicated in their homes."

Coup in Thailand?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060919/ts_nm/thailand_tanks_dc_1

Quote of the year-

"Turkish lawmaker compares pope to Hitler" (Suzan Fraser, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/09/15)...But anger still swept across the Muslim world, with Pakistan's parliament unanimously adopting a resolution condemning the pope for making what it called "derogatory" comments about Islam, and seeking an apology from him."Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said."

Bogart

http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/issues/05_03/05-03-bogart.html

"Once, after a long night of drinking, Bogart found himself at dawn staggering through unfamiliar Hollywood streets. Hammered, unshaven and disheveled, he noticed a light burning in one of the windows. He approached, drawn by the smell of frying bacon, and looked inside to see a woman cooking breakfast for her family. He stood there a while, leering drunkenly, until the woman noticed him and let loose a scream.

My God! It's Humphrey Bogart!
What about him? her husband said.
He's standing in our front yard.
Well, invite him in.

Bogie sat down with the family, enthralling them with ribald tales of Betty Davis, Errol Flynn and James Cagney. He finished breakfast, called a cab and left the family with a story their friends would never believe."

The Vatican (this is no longer just the Pope talking) is trying to get away with a non-apology apology, to appease the Islamic world’s violent temper tantrums: Pope ‘deeply sorry’ for Muslim fury.

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Rome (CNN) — Pope Benedict XVI has said he is “deeply sorry” for the reaction to his comments on Islam and said a quote he used from a medieval text about holy wars did not reflect his personal thoughts.
The pope’s speech in Germany last week — in which he appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that early Muslims spread their religion by violence — has sparked protests around the world. [Note to CNN: you’re disgusting. It’s not “a Christian view” that Islam was spread by the sword, it’s a historical fact. And it’s not even “contested by most Muslims.” Western media is now in the business of deliberately obscuring facts. —ed.]
“I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims,” the pope said in his regular Sunday blessing, the Angelus, at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, southeast of Rome.
“This was a quote from a medieval text which does not express in any way my personal thoughts.”
The pope told pilgrims he hoped his remarks now and an explanation by the Vatican Saturday were enough to “placate spirits and give the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was an attempt to frankly and sincerely express my great reciprocal and mutual respect with the Muslim faith.”

What Bias?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/blog/2006/09/the_aps_switcheroo.html

Italian Nun Shot Dead by Somali Gunmen

MOHAMED SHEIKH NOR, Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Two gunmen killed an Italian nun and her bodyguard at a hospital Sunday, and a security official for an Islamic militia controlling the capital speculated the attack was linked to worldwide Muslim anger over a speech by Pope Benedict XVI.

The nun, whose identify was not released, was shot in the back four times at the entrance to the Austrian-run S.O.S. Hospital in northern Mogadishu, said Dr. Mohamed Yusuf, a physician at the facility, which serves mothers and children.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which came hours after a leading Somali cleric condemned remarks by the pope that quoted a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of Islam's founder as "evil and inhuman."

The head of security for the Islamic militia, Yusuf Mohamed Siad, said one man had been arrested and a second was being hunted. He said the killing might have stemmed from the uproar over the pope but stressed he didn't know for sure.

"They could be people annoyed by the pope's speech, which angered all Muslims in the world, or they could have been having something to do with S.O.S," he said. "We will have to clarify this through our investigation."

A Vatican spokesman called the nun's slaying "a horrible episode," the Italian news agency ANSA said.

"Let's hope that it will be an isolated fact," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said. He expressed hope Muslim anger would ease following Benedict's explanation Sunday that the quotation he cited did not reflect his personal opinion about Islam.

The nun, who spoke fluent Somali, was believed to be around 60 and had been working at the hospital since 2002, people at the hospital said, insisting on anonymity for fear of reprisals. She taught at the hospital and also looked after children, said one doctor.

Her body was being flown to Nairobi, Kenya, before being returned to Italy, he added.

Like many foreigners, she traveled with a bodyguard in Somalia, which sank into anarchy after warlords overthrew the country's longtime dictator in 1991.

But attacks on foreigners have continued.

In June an award-winning Swedish journalist, Martin Adler, was fatally shot while covering a demonstration in Mogadishu. Veteran Italian aid worker Annalena Tonelli was shot dead in 2003 in the breakaway republic of Somaliland in the north.

Islamic fundamentalists have stepped into the political and security vacuum, seizing control of Mogadishu and much of Somalia's south, imposing strict religious rule.

A U.N.-backed acting government was established two years ago, but it has failed to assert any power outside its base in Baidoa, 150 miles from Mogadishu.

The Islamic militia's courts are credited with bringing a semblance of order, but the West fears the emergence of a Taliban-style regime.

On Sunday, a Somali cleric strongly criticized Benedict's speech.

"The pope's statement at this time was not only wrong but irresponsible as well," said Sheik Nor Barud, deputy leader of the Somali Muslim Scholars Association.

"Both the Pope and the Byzantine emperor he quoted are ignorant of Islam and its noble prophet," he told journalists at a news conference.

Wow, I guess with his name it would be impossible for the author of this piece to say anything against the chicken shit assassins.

Backup Punter May Have Stabbed Starter
By PAT GRAHAM , 09.13.2006, 07:19 PM

In a scenario reminiscent of Tonya Harding vs. Nancy Kerrigan, the backup punter at Northern Colorado has been accused of stabbing his rival in the leg - his kicking leg. Mitch Cozad, a sophomore from Wheatland, Wyo., allegedly attacked Rafael Mendoza in a parking lot this week. Arrested on a charge of second-degree assault, Cozad was freed Wednesday on a $30,000 bond. Mendoza, who was treated and released at a Greeley hospital, will miss at least Saturday's game at Texas State. "Rafael is a competitor and wants to get back as soon as he can," said head coach Scott Downing. "When that occurs, I don't know." The incident conjured up images of the rivalry between figure skaters Harding and Kerrigan. Harding was banned from the sport for life after her former husband hired a hit man to smack Kerrigan on the knee with a crowbar. "I guess the only identified motive (in the attack on Mendoza) at this point in time is the competition for that position," Evans police Lt. Gary Kessler said. But Downing wasn't so sure. Cozad and Mendoza, a junior from the Denver suburb of Thornton, were competitive, he said, but no more than players at other positions. "No different than starting quarterback or starting right tackle," he said. "Everyone was held accountable to the same level." Asked if there was any jealousy between the two players, he said, "I have no idea. That would all be conjecture." Cozad was suspended from the university and the team and was evicted from his dorm room, said director of athletics Jay Hinrichs. Cozad had no listed phone number in Greeley, and a phone message left at his Wyoming address was not immediately returned. The stabbing took place Monday in Evans, a small town adjacent to Greeley and about 50 miles north of Denver. The Greeley Tribune first reported the story in Wednesday's editions. Kessler said Mendoza, averaging 37.6 yards per punt on nine punts in the two games, was attacked from behind and stabbed in his right thigh after parking his car outside his Evans apartment about 9:30 p.m. The assailant fled in a black Dodge Charger, Kessler said. About 10 minutes after the attack, a liquor store clerk told police that two men in a car matching that description stopped outside the store, stripped tape off the license plate and drove away. The clerk gave police the license number, and the car was traced to Cozad, who was arrested Tuesday, Kessler said.

On this Day

It was on this day in 1901 that the then Vice President Theodore Roosevelt learned he had become the 26th president of the United States, after the death by assassination of President William McKinley.

On September 6, 1901, less than a year into Roosevelt's role as vice president, President McKinley was visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, when an anarchist walked up to him and shot him in the stomach.

Roosevelt rushed to the president's side, but by the time he got there McKinley seemed to be doing fine. He was talking normally and even making jokes, and everyone assumed that he would soon be back on his feet.

Roosevelt decided that he wasn't needed, so he went ahead with his vacation plans for that summer: a camping trip in the Adirondacks. He set out to climb Mount Marcy, the tallest mountain in New York. He had reached the peak and was eating lunch when a telegram delivery man stumbled up the mountain to deliver the news that McKinley's condition had worsened over night. A second telegram arrived late that night saying that Roosevelt should get to Buffalo as soon as possible. His wife begged him to wait until morning, since the roads were still wet and muddy from the rain, but Roosevelt didn't want to wait.

He and a young man hitched some horses to a primitive wagon called a "buckboard" and set off down the mountain just after midnight on this day in 1901. The ride down the mountain took more than five hours. When Roosevelt reached the train station, just after dawn, his secretary met him and gave him the latest telegram from Buffalo. It said, "The president died at two-fifteen this morning." At the age of 42, Theodore Roosevelt had become the youngest president in United States history.

The Pope Confronts Islamic Jihad

Pope Benedict XVI continues to push the limits of Vatican political correctness, directly confronting the issues of Islam and jihad: The Pope Tackles Faith and Terrorism.

His discourse Tuesday sought to delineate what he sees as a fundamental difference between Christianity’s view that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) and Islam´s view that “God is absolutely transcendent.” Benedict said that Islam teaches that God’s “will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.” The risk he sees implicit in this concept of the divine is that the irrationality of violence can potentially be justified if someone believes it is God’s will. “As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?”
This is indeed Benedict doing it on his own terms. Rather than tackling the challenge of fundamentalist terrorism with a pithy remark packaged for the 9/11 anniversary or reaching for a John Paul-inspired sweeping gesture, the professor Pope went digging into his books. He went so far as to quote a 14th century Byzantine emperor´s hostile view of Islam’s founder. “The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the Pope said. “He said, I quote, ‘Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’” Benedict added “I quote” twice to make it clear these were someone else’s words. Nevertheless this reference was undoubtedly the most provocative moment of a provocative lecture. In a sense, explicitly including the Muslim prophet by name, and citing the concept of jihad, was a flashing neon signal to the world that the soft-spoken Pope intends to make himself heard clearly on this defining tension of our times.
It is not the first time he has entered the fray. On his last trip to Germany, to Cologne for Catholic World Youth Day in August 2005, he told a group of Muslims that they have a responsibility to try to halt the violence carried out in the name of their religion. Even earlier on this trip to Bavaria, which ends Thursday, he seemed to refer to Islam’s negative view of a Western society that has too little faith, and cited it as the cause for tensions.

Old Irish Saying:

"Is this a private fight or can anyone get into it?"

Jospeh Campell

He believed all spirituality is searching for the same unknown force (which he spoke of as both an immanent and a transcendent force, or that which is both within and without, as opposed to only without) from which everything came, in which everything currently exists, and into which everything will return. He referred to this force as the connotation of what he called "metaphors", the metaphors being the various deities and objects of spirituality in the world.


We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YfIpJmcBJk&mode=related&search=

John Van Pahlke Jr.

PAHLKE, JOHN VAN JR. January 11, 1946-August 30, 2006. Born in Kellogg, Idaho, John grew up in Southeast Portland, attending St. Peters and Central Catholic High School. At Central, he was a multi-sport athlete, accepting a football scholarship to Boise State. It was there that he met his future wife, Mary McBroom. After a season at Boise, he transferred to the University of Oregon on a track scholarship (javelin). In 1966, while at Oregon, he enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve in Vietnam. A sergeant with Company B, 1st Battalion, Airborne, 12th Cavalry, awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. Upon his honorable discharge, he returned to Portland, wed Mary, and began a family. He finished his education at Portland State and joined the Portland Police Bureau in 1971. After 11 years on the force, an accident forced early retirement. He worked in real estate for a time before going back to school at the University of Portland to earn his bachelor's in nursing. He worked in the intensive care units at OHSU, Georgetown University, and Legacy Emanuel (among others). John's greatest joy, his greatest accomplishment is his family. He is survived by his best friend, the love of his life for the past 38 years, his wife, Mary; his two sons, John and Tom; his parents, John and Joyce; brothers, Don, Jim and Mike; sister, Kathy; and his three grandchildren, Emily, Mark and Sean. All carry the Pahlke name with a little more pride because of John. It is foolish and wrong to mourn the man who has died. Rather we should thank God that such a man ever lived. Love you Dad A service will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 6, in Church of the Resurrection, 21060 S.W. Stafford Rd, Tualatin.

Published in The Oregonian on 9/7/2006.