Making Big $$$ from Misery

16 al-Qaeda members escape from Iraqi jail

U.S. and Iraqi militaries have launched a massive manhunt for 16 al-Qaeda members who broke out of a jail in Tikrit, the former home town of deposed president Saddam Hussein. The jail break occurred Wednesday night when seventeen prisoners, five of them on death row, climbed out of a small bathroom window to freedom. Eight of the prisoners, including three on death row, have since been caught. Search parties, planes, and dogs are combing the area surrounding Tikrit, which is about 100 miles (170 kilometers) north of the capital Baghdad for the remainder of the escapees. U.S. military officials say they are providing aerial surveillance and search dogs for the manhunt. Road-blocks have been set up for all roads going to and from Tikrit. The border crossing with Syria is also under close surveillance.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=547377

Good News: Ten Examples Of Journalistic Integrity

British newspaper reports Saudis will let Israel bomb Iran

 

by Gregory Patin

 

A British newspaper, The Daily Express, reported on Sunday that Saudi Arabia is "ready to allow Israel to bomb Iran's new nuclear site." The report cites a meeting in London between MI6 intelligence chief Sir John Scarlett, Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials. British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant three years ago, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom. See: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/130251/Saudis-will-let-Israel-bomb-Iran-nuclear-site.

In compliance with a International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requirement, Iran revealed the existence of the new plant this month and has agreed to allow U.N. inspectors access to it. While the British report states that "diplomatic sources said it could hold 3,000 centrifuges, capable of making enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb each year," the IAEA reports that nuclear material has not yet been added. The IAEA says that the data they have been given suggests that as with the existing Nanatz facility, the new site is only designed to enrich uranium to 5%, useful for energy production at the nation's Bushehr power plant but not for military purposes. See: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/25/as-required-iran-informs-iaea-about-new-enrichment-site/.

The most direct route for the Israeli air force to attack Iran would be over Iraq, but Israeli F-15I and F-16I jets would still be well-within range of Iran after flying over Saudi air space. Such a move may also circumvent some political pressure from the U.S.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-23316-Madison-Independent-Examiner~y2009m9d28-British-newspaper-reports-Saudis-will-let-Isreal-bomb-Iran

A petition filled with thousands of American names

Here come the airport rectal exams!

by Cory Doctorow

Uh-oh. Now that a terrorist has tried unsuccessfully to blow up a Saudi prince with a bomb shoved up his ass, the TSA is obliged to perform rectal exams on every flier for the rest of time. After all, once a jihadi failed to blow up a plane with his shoe, we all needed to start taking our shoes off. Then some knuckleheads believed they could blow up a plane with energy beverages and hair gel, so now we have to limit ourselves to 100ml of all liquids and gels, unless they're for babies or are prescription (because no mass-murderer would be so evil as to forge a doctor's note, which, as every junkie knows, cannot possibly be forged).

Now we found someone who was made to believe he could kill people with an asshole bomb, and so it follows that the TSA will have to ban -- or at least inspect -- our assholes. They're like opinions, you know, everybody's got one. Except, of course, most of us got to keep our assholes to ourselves. Not anymore.

Let's just be thankful that no one has yet convinced a suicidal murderer that he could blow up a plane with his mind, because once that happens, we're all in for mandatory airport trepannations. Because, you know, you can't be too safe. Every little bit helps. If an unhinged suicide bomber believes it's possible, we must take it seriously. To do less would be irresponsible.

For years, I have made the joke about Richard Reid: "Just be glad that he wasn't the underwear bomber." Now, sadly, we have an example of one.

Lewis Page, an "improvised-device disposal operator tasked in support of the UK mainland police from 2001-2004," pointed out that this isn't much of a threat for three reasons: 1) you can't stuff a lot of explosives into a body cavity, 2) detonation is, um, problematic, and 3) the human body can stifle an explosion pretty effectively (think of someone throwing himself on a grenade to save his friends).

But who ever accused the TSA of being rational?

Ass Bomber

 

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/28/here-come-the-airpor.html

William Safire’s Favorite New Yorker Cartoon

© Chon Day

In rememberance of political columnist William Safire, who died yesterday at the age of 79, we present his favorite New Yorker cartoon. Even though this cartoon by Chon Day was published in April 1945, the recent financial meltdown for which nobody seems responsible makes it timely today.

http://politicalirony.com/2009/09/28/william-safires-favorite-new-yorker-cartoon/

Karl Rove And The Republican War Against ACORN

By Jason Leopold

In recent days, the Washington Post, the New York Times and other major news outlets have recounted the "troubled" history of the poor people's advocacy group ACORN, but left out the five-year anti-ACORN campaign led by White House adviser Karl Rove and other Republican operatives.

Dropped down the memory hole is the fact that ACORN was at the center of the so-called "prosecutor-gate" scandal, when the Bush administration pressured U.S. Attorneys to bring indictments over the grassroots group's voter-registration drives and then fired some prosecutors who resisted what they viewed as a partisan strategy not supported by solid evidence.

The latest furor over ACORN was touched off by conservative filmmaker James E. O'Keefe III and a right-wing columnist who posed as a couple planning to buy a house for use as a brothel and getting advice from a few ACORN employees, rather than being turned away.

The pair filmed their meetings at ACORN offices with a hidden-camera, producing a video that brought to a fever pitch the long-simmering Republican war against ACORN. The video was trumpeted by Fox News and other right-wing news outlets, starting a stampede in the mainstream press and in Congress, where a majority of panicked Democrats joined the herd in approving legislation to strip ACORN of federal funds.

The stampede, which trampled ACORN and its mostly black and Hispanic organizing staff, soon pulled in President Barack Obama, who often has touted his work as a community organizer in his youth. In an interview last Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Obama told host George Stephanopoulos that ACORN "deserves to be investigated."

Yet, while bending to Republican demands to speak out against a poor people's group, Obama continued to resist the notion that powerful Republicans from the Bush administration deserved to be investigated for authorizing the use of torture against prisoners in the "war on terror."

http://pubrecord.org/nation/5510/republican-against-acorn-starring/

Stealing from the rich vs. stealing from the masses

Hoosier Grandmother Arrested for Purchasing Cold Medication

Last March, Sally Harpold, an Indiana grandmother of triplets, bought two boxes of cold medication in less than a week. Together, the two boxes contained 3.6 grams of pseudoephedrine, putting her in violation of the state's methamphetamine-fighting law, which forbids the purchase of more than three grams by one person in a seven-day period.

Police came to Harpold's home, arrested and handcuffed her, and booked her in a Vermillion County jail. No one believes Harpold was making meth or aiding anyone who was. But local authorities aren't apologizing for her arrest.

"I don't want to go there again," [Vermillion County Prosecutor Nina] Alexander told the Tribune-Star, recalling how the manufacture and abuse of methamphetamine ravaged the tiny county and its families.

While the law was written with the intent of stopping people from purchasing large quantities of drugs to make methamphetamine, the law does not say the purchase must be made with the intent to make meth.

"The law does not make this distinction," Alexander said…

Just as with any law, the public has the responsibility to know what is legal and what is not, and ignorance of the law is no excuse, the prosecutor said.

"I'm simply enforcing the law as it was written," Alexander said…

It is up to customers to pay attention to their purchase amounts, and to check medication labels, Alexander said.

"If you take these products, you ought to know what's in them," she said.

Harpold's photo was put on the front page of the local paper as part of an article about the arrest of 17 people in a "drug sweep." Alexander has generously allowed Harpold to enter a deferral program. If she commits no crimes in the next 30 days, her arrest will be wiped from her record. She'll still have to pay court costs and attorney fees.

I'll leave it to Vigo County Sheriff Jon Marvel to (unintentionally) put an exclamation point on the absurdity.

"Sometimes mistakes happen," Marvel said. "It's unfortunate. But for the good of everyone, the law was put into effect.

"I feel for her, but if she could go to one of the area hospitals and see a baby born to a meth-addicted mother …"

Because clearly the best way to prevent meth-addicted babies is to arrest women who buy cold medication for their grandchildren.

http://www.theagitator.com/2009/09/28/hoosier-grandmother-arrested-for-purchasing-cold-medication/

Diebold: Return our money!

...fighting for truth, justice and the American way...

www.DieboldReturnOurMoney.com A Campaign of VelvetRevolution.us and the Velvet Revolution Election Protection Strike Force Diebold/Premier's Equipment and Software Must Be Immediately and Permanently Decertified and a Criminal Investigation Launched As A Result Of The California Secretary Of State's Findings and Diebold/Premier's Own Admissions That Its Voting Systems Do Not Meet Federal Standards, Velvet Revolution Calls on the Company to Return the Well Over $100 Million in Taxpayer Funds Spent by Californians on Failed, Faulty Voting System Hardware and Software California officials recently revealed that ALL of Diebold/Premier's voting systems violate federal certifications guidelines!* These systems illegally do some or all of the following::* delete ballots without notice allow the "permanent" audit log records to be deleted fail to properly record deletion of ballots insert incorrect time stamps on audit log items. Yet Diebold falsely claimed to meet all federal voting system standards. Accordingly, we demand that: 1) DIEBOLD: RETURN OUR MONEY!: Diebold/Premier has accepted well over $100 million in county, state and federal taxpayer funds for services which the company knew it could not perform. With California's devastating budget shortfall of $ 45.5 billion dollars, we demand the return of these funds from Diebold. The purchase price for hardware, software licenses, and maintenance fees should be returned to the State within 90 days. If Diebold's announced sale to Election Systems and Software becomes final, California must be fully reimbursed instead from ES&S. 2) SOS DEBRA BOWEN: DECERTIFY DIEBOLD!:, Diebold/Premier products, currently used in 20 California counties, violate federal voting system standards and must be immediately and permanently decertified by Secretary of State Debra Bowen. 3) AG JERRY BROWN: PROSECUTE DIEBOLD!: California's Attorney General Jerry Brown must immediately launch a comprehensive criminal investigation into Diebold/Premier's knowing use and sale of faulty election systems that have undermined our elections. Further, unless Diebold/Premier, within 90 days, refunds to California all monies paid for its fraudulent software and equipment, we call on the State of California to file suit against Diebold/Premier seeking the return of funds for breach of contract and fraud. Velvet Revolution has been calling for accountability and transparency from electronic voting companies since launching its "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign in 2005. We are now putting all such companies on notice: Across the nation, we are fed up with false promises, shoddy and faulty voting systems, and continued knowing violation of the law. We demand accountability and we insist that public officials enforce their contracts and applicable federal and state standards! Our election system has been dangerously compromised. 'We the People' will not tolerate compromise on our freedoms, our liberty, our democracy. We will not compromise on our insistence that companies receiving taxpayer money act transparently and honestly. Send an email to Diebold/Premier, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen and California Attorney General Jerry Brown. Tell them: Diebold/Premier: 'Return Our Money!' Secretary of State Bowen: Throw Diebold Out of Our State, Once and For All! Attorney General Brown: Investigate! Prosecute! Obtain a Refund!

 

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/db_money/

Next week's media blitz

GOP Senators Pull Out of Inquiry Into CIA Program

 

By Peter Finn

Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Friday that they will no longer participate in an investigation into the Bush administration's interrogation policies, arguing that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s decision to reexamine allegations of detainee abuse by the CIA would hobble any inquiry.

The intelligence committee launched a review in March of CIA interrogations of high-value detainees such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who describes himself as the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Senate staffers are poring over hundreds of thousands of classified documents to probe the history and effectiveness of the CIA program, as well as congressional oversight of agency practices.

Last month, Holder appointed a career prosecutor to review allegations of detainee abuse by CIA operatives, but he stressed that neither the review nor any full investigation, should it follow, means that criminal charges are inevitable.

"Had Mr. Holder honored the pledge made by the President to look forward, not backwards, we would still be active participants in the Committee's review," the ranking Republican on the intelligence panel, Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, said in a statement. "What current or former CIA employee would be willing to gamble his freedom by answering the Committee's questions? Indeed, forcing these terror fighters to make this choice is neither fair nor just."

The Justice Department, as is its practice, asked the committee not to provide immunity to any witnesses, according to a source on Capitol Hill who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

No witnesses have yet appeared before the committee, and another official said the issue of immunity was a red herring because the panel has not offered immunity to anyone in many years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092503745.html

A New Media Book That’s Actually Fun to Read

by Paul Gillin

I start lots of books about new media, but I finish very few of them. My ADD is only part of the reason. I often find that authors don't have much to say beyond a few points that are stated clearly in the first 100 pages or so and repeated for the remaining 200.

Not so with The Chaos Scenario, the new volume by veteran advertising critic Bob Garfield. I devoured this book and was sorry to see it end. One reason: It is so much fun to read.

Garfield is a gifted writer and he's funny as hell. Of the video for OK Go's YouTube hit "Here It Goes Again," he writes, "Everyone on earth has seen the video at least four times, except for certain remote areas in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, where several tribesmen had seen only twice." Or "If it were Japanese steel Google was flooding the market with, instead of kitten videos, it would be called dumping."

Such asides are garnish on a viciously insightful treatise on the death of advertising by someone who has the street cred to make that judgment. Garfield's quarter century of experience qualifies him to say when media is badly broken, which he clearly believes it is.

In an opening chapter entitled "The Death of Everything," he documents the implosion of mainstream media channels of every kind under the weight of new-media competition and changing audience behavior. If your CEO still insists on throwing away money on TV ads, put this chapter in front of him.

Listenomics

Much of the book outlines the principles of "Listenomics," or the premise that institutions that fail to listen to and engage with their newly empowered customers will die. The power that now exists in the hands of ordinary citizens can humble even the most arrogant corporate giants.

Among the examples of this Garfield cites is a grassroots campaign called "Comcast Must Die" which he and a core of frustrated cable subscribers mounted in 2007. Through blogs and message boards, an angry mob of customers turned the tables on a giant utility, forcing meaningful change across its vast customer service operation. As besieged Senior VP Rick Germano ultimately admits, "I'm crying 'uncle' now.'"

Garfield believes in the power of the crowd but not necessarily in its wisdom. Chapter 9 ("Off, Off, Off Madison") presents a scathing indictment of consumer-generated advertising (CGA), which Garfield characterizes as mostly a dull imitation of what non-professionals believe advertising should be.

"Most CGA has been the stuff of tiny little talents with tiny little budgets pursuing tiny little ideas," he writes.  Which is not to say that pitting crowds against each other is always a bad thing, as long as the crowds know what they're doing. Garfield praises CrowdSPRING, a competitive foundry for design professionals that created dozens of choices for the book's logo for just $500.

http://gillin.com/blog/2009/09/a-new-media-book-thats-actually-fun-to-read/

Fantastic Adventures

 

Repugs playing poker

Time capsule found on the dead planet

 

In December world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to try to reach a global deal to tackle climate change. To support the launch of the 10:10 campaign to reduce carbon emissions, the Review asked some of our greatest artists, authors and poets to produce new work in response to the crisis

by Margaret Atwood

 

1. In the first age, we created gods. We carved them out of wood; there was still such a thing as wood, then. We forged them from shining metals and painted them on temple walls. They were gods of many kinds, and goddesses as well. Sometimes they were cruel and drank our blood, but also they gave us rain and sunshine, favourable winds, good harvests, fertile animals, many children. A million birds flew over us then, a million fish swam in our seas.

Our gods had horns on their heads, or moons, or sealy fins, or the beaks of eagles. We called them All-Knowing, we called them Shining One. We knew we were not orphans. We smelled the earth and rolled in it; its juices ran down our chins.

2. In the second age we created money. This money was also made of shining metals. It had two faces: on one side was a severed head, that of a king or some other noteworthy person, on the other face was something else, something that would give us comfort: a bird, a fish, a fur-bearing animal. This was all that remained of our former gods. The money was small in size, and each of us would carry some of it with him every day, as close to the skin as possible. We could not eat this money, wear it or burn it for warmth; but as if by magic it could be changed into such things. The money was mysterious, and we were in awe of it. If you had enough of it, it was said, you would be able to fly.

3. In the third age, money became a god. It was all-powerful, and out of control. It began to talk. It began to create on its own. It created feasts and famines, songs of joy, lamentations. It created greed and hunger, which were its two faces. Towers of glass rose at its name, were destroyed and rose again. It began to eat things. It ate whole forests, croplands and the lives of children. It ate armies, ships and cities. No one could stop it. To have it was a sign of grace.

4. In the fourth age we created deserts. Our deserts were of several kinds, but they had one thing in common: nothing grew there. Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked earth. We made these deserts from the desire for more money and from despair at the lack of it. Wars, plagues and famines visited us, but we did not stop in our industrious creation of deserts. At last all wells were poisoned, all rivers ran with filth, all seas were dead; there was no land left to grow food.

Some of our wise men turned to the contemplation of deserts. A stone in the sand in the setting sun could be very beautiful, they said. Deserts were tidy, because there were no weeds in them, nothing that crawled. Stay in the desert long enough, and you could apprehend the absolute. The number zero was holy.

5. You who have come here from some distant world, to this dry lakeshore and this cairn, and to this cylinder of brass, in which on the last day of all our recorded days I place our final words:

Pray for us, who once, too, thought we could fly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/26/margaret-atwood-mini-science-fiction

Demand Release of G-20 Detainees! Drop All Charges and End RepressionNOW!

Bail Out the People Home  |  Bail Out the People Movement Blog  |  Donate

Demand Release of G-20 Detainees! Drop All Charges and End Repression NOW!

Sign the online petition to Federal Officials, Congressional leaders, the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation, the Pennsylvania Legislature, the Mayor of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Police Chief, Pittsburgh city officials, Pittsburgh business leaders, the Allegheny County Council and local and national media demanding an immediate release of all detainees, that all charges be dropped, and calling for an independent investigation, at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/releaseg20arrestees.shtml

Repressive cop forces provoke violence, arrests in Pittsburgh
Join the call to release all detainees, drop all charges and for an independent investigation now!

The repressive cop forces of homeland security locked down the people of Pittsburgh during the G-20 economic summit – bringing with them violence, arrests and intimidation. Bail Out the People Movement (BOPM) demands that all 150 arrestees be accounted for and released; all charges be dropped and a public apology be made to the people of Pittsburgh by County Executive Dan Onorato Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, police chief Nate Harper, and other officials responsible for the massive repressive forces and an independent labor-community-student investigation of the repressive actions especially directed against youth.

On Thurs, Sept. 24 and Fri., Sept. 25, government sweeps by the Pittsburgh police and more than 4,000 additional cops, state troopers and national guard, gave rise to videos and eyewitness reports starkly reminiscent of the repression by U.S. trained military dictatorships in Latin America i.e. youth wrestled into unmarked cars by police dressed in military fatigue uniforms and repressive forces posing for photos with kneeling captives.

Experiments with high-tech sound weaponry also reportedly used in Honduras, gases and other "less-lethal" crowd control became the order of the day on Sept. 25 when police surrounded and arrested youth gathered in Schenley Plaza near the University of Pittsburgh in the Oakland neighborhood. Arrestees reported that after the order to disperse, all exit routes were blocked and more than 100 people were arrested. Among them was a Pittsburgh-Post Gazette newspaper reporter.

On the scene, Dante Strobino from FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) wrote: "The police began to occupy the park and forcefully removed everyone. As students began to gather around to check it out, the riot police got more hyped up. There were no chants, no signs, no banners, no folks dressed in black and no provocation. The police threw several tear gas and smoke bombs at the crowd again and pushed them further back down commercial streets toward bars and restaurants. They also chased people into the huge dormitory towers and attacked students as they left their residences. Students were hanging out the windows, taking pictures in awe."

"Forbes St. was blocked off by hundreds of riot cops while surrounding contingents of cops moved in on the other areas of the campus to corral people inside the area. Police brutality had been witnessed with folks being thrown to the ground and shot with rubber bullets, media being pepper sprayed and gassed. Protesters and students alike are being held in the dorm towers unable to leave in fear of arrest. Other students cannot cross Fifth Ave. to get to their residences without being thrown to the ground."

"What is most striking about being here is seeing the incredible police repression both Thursday and Friday night in Oakland, near U of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University, two universities with mostly white, mostly class-privileged students. As Larry Holmes commented during the BOPM Tent City, at any given normal day the police usually target and harass the Black community, but these two days not only are those under normal occupation, but the police are targeting young white folks, too."

Sean O'Sullivan, senior at University of Pittsburgh, who was not taking part in the protests earlier in the day, stated "It was the police who started the violence and ended up finishing the violence. It felt like a war zone...the police kept becoming more and more violent, taking over more and more of the street. I couldn't get to my house even until 3 a.m. on Thursday."

Jillian Dowis, sophomore at Ohio University from Students for a Democratic Society who came to Pittsburgh to protest the G-20's policies, speaking of her experience on the night of Sept. 25, said "After a reporter got maced in face and we brought him to steps of chapel. The cops swarmed around us and arrested guy that was injured, he could barely breath, trying to get him away from crowd. As kids tried to run away they picked us off one by one. My friend called her dad. Then a cop said to us, 'Shut the f_ck up and get off the goddamn phone'. My friend was was trying to say bye and the cop grabbed her by head and slammed her head into the ground. They were being way forceful and too aggressive and intentionally put on handcuffs way too tight."

A 24-hour continuous vigil is ongoing at the Allegheny County Jail until all arrestees are released.

Sign the online petition at http://www.bailoutpeople.org/releaseg20arrestees.shtml to send email messages to officials demanding the immediate release of those arrested and an independent investigation. The sample text of the appeal follows:

To: Pittsburgh Mayor Ravenstahl, Pittsburgh City Council, Pittsburgh Police Chief, Allegheny County Council
CC: PA Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the PA Legislature, Federal Officials, Pittsburgh business leaders, members of the Pittsburgh and national media

I demand that the military occupation of Pittsburgh be disbanded immediately; all charges against the people arrested in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and 25 especially the youth – including those involved in direct action confronting the G-20 summit – be dropped. Everyone detained must be accounted for and released. I support an independent worker-community-student investigation of the homeland security occupation and repression during the G-20 summit.

Sincerely,
(your name appended here)

VIDEOS OF POLICE REPRESSION:

College students trapped in stairwell and gassed, attacked
http://celluloidblonde.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/land-of-the-free/

Police assault couple in street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlD9QKZdPhE&feature=player_embedded

Police pose while taking picture of arrested student
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-333880

Bail Out the People Home  |  Bail Out the People Movement Blog  |  Donate

Bill Maher Should Be America's Surgeon General!

FOR THE PRESERVATION AND PROMOTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY

By Donald B. Ardell

Bill Maher, my choice for Czar of REAL Wellness if such an office ever becomes a top position in the Executive branch of government, has condensed in one NEW RULE a central idea I have been promoting for at least 30 years in a dozen books, 74 printed newsletters, 503 weekly electronic newsletters and about 500 speeches. Sheesh—I wish I had a sense of humor and could write hilarious copy that cuts to the quick in the Maher manner.

In my first book, High Level Wellness: An Alternative To Doctors, Drugs and Disease (Rodale, 1976), I wrote: "Modern medicine is a wonderful thing but there are two problems: people expect too much of it and too little of themselves." If we all expected more of ourselves, that is, lived wisely aided by positive choices that enabled high levels of fitness while foregoing the common high risk behaviors (smoking, excessive alcohol intake, fat and sugary low density foods, sedentary living, etc.), we would not need a $2.6 trillion per year medical system to attend to avoidable maladies.

Of course, Maher gets to the point faster with high hilarity.

Here is Bill Maher's latest NEW RULE. Every paragraph is funny AND true at the same time, and it sweeps away all the BS contained in tens of thousands of ponderous position papers produced by policy experts on the right, left and middle concerning health system reform—and that's only in the last few days.

After each of the following paragraphs of Bill Maher's NEW RULE commentary, in quotes, you will find additional brief remarks from me.

New Rule: You can't complain about health care reform if you're not willing to reform your own health. Unlike most liberals, I'm glad all those teabaggers marched on Washington last week. Because judging from the photos, it's the first exercise they've gotten in years. Not counting, of course, all the Rascal scooters there, most of which aren't even for the disabled. They're just Americans who turned 60 and said, 'Screw it, I'm done walking.'

How come next to nobody has been pointing this out? It's as if the emperor has no clothes but nobody notices that he's not only bare nekked—he's corpulent, as well. The emperor in this case is the American people—and those complaining about the medical system need to reform their own health. To Bill Maher, I say what is often said as an expression of enthusiastic approval downunder: "You beaudy." 

Maher's New Rule continues:

These people are furious at the high cost of health care, so they blame illegals, who don't even get health care. News flash, Glenn Beck fans: the reason health care is so expensive is because you're all so unhealthy.

Just so. Therefore, one would expect our new president, a leader with good sense and good values and excellent advisers, to find a way to emphasize the vital role of personal responsibility at every turn. Would YOU not expect that? Incredibly, he does not do so. Why not? President Obama, a model of good living and committed to exercise (albeit a closet struggling-to-quit light smoker), surely knows the importance of exercise and wise lifestyle choices that lower health risks and, more important, boost quality of life. What is going on? How can this be explained? It's a wonderment, is it not?

More from Maher and his wonderful New Rule:

Yes, it was fun this week to watch the teabaggers complain how the media underestimated the size of their march, 'How can you say there were only 60,000 of us? We filled the entire mall!' Yes, because you're fat. One whale fills the tank at Sea World, that doesn't make it a crowd.

Brilliant, truly smack on. Alas, if you are not a celebrated comic with your own show on HBO, you really can't get away with pointing out that folks are fat, let alone making unflattering analogies about fat Republicans and others with a Sea World whale.

Maher on the obvious (in other words, the emperor's nudity): 

President Obama has identified all the problems with the health care system, but there's one tiny issue he refuses to tackle, and that's our actual health.

Mr. President! Please start talking about this.

http://tpjmagazine.us/ardell33

Massive Muslim Prayer in D.C. Incites Christian Prayers

An unprecedented Muslim prayer rally to take place on Capitol Hill Friday afternoon has Christian leaders responding with calls for prayer and fasting of their own.

By Jennifer Riley

Christian evangelist Lou Engle of TheCall has partnered with Shirley Dobson, chair of the National Day of Prayer Task Force and wife of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, to issue an urgent nationwide call for Christians to pray and fast on Sept. 25 – the day when up to 50,000 Muslims plan to pray in front of the Capitol building.

The leaders urge the Church in America to fast and pray that Muslims would be moved by the Holy Spirit, be convicted by the testimony of Christ, and be visited by Jesus in dreams like many Muslims who have come to Christ have experienced.

"There is a great spiritual conflict with a rising tide of Islamic boldness being manifested," according to TheCall Web site. "We must pray that God would restrain the spiritual powers behind Islam and grant us the great awakening that we desperately need for America."

At 1 p.m. Friday on the west side of the Capitol, tens of thousands of Muslims are expected to gather and pray. The event, called "Islam on Capitol Hill," is organized by Hassen Abdellah, a lawyer who is president of the Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth, N.J.

Abdellah has come under fire from some conservative Christians for his connection to suspected and convicted terrorists. The Muslim lawyer represented a terrorist convicted of manufacturing the bomb in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His client is now serving time in the "supermax" prison in Colorado.

In another case, Abdellah represented a Baltimore cabdriver who pleaded guilty of attending a jihad terrorist training camp in Pakistan and aiding a terrorist group.

But the Muslim lawyer defended his legal record, saying that he has also put many "bad people" in jail, according to The Washington Post. Moreover, he said the event will not include any political message.

"This is just about prayer," Abdellah told FOXNews.com. "The purpose is Islamic unity, so we can display the beauty of Islam. We believe the groupsare going to be people who love and respect America, and we want to let America know that we're here and that we support the country.

"I know it's difficult for people to believe it could be that simple."

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090925/muslim-prayer-in-d-c-spurs-christians-to-react-likewise/index.html