Collective Sigh

One person with direct knowledge of the incident told me that a US officer in Iraq had had to threaten his tired, dusty, frightened men with being disciplined if they did not stop referring to Bush as "the Deserter."

So it wasn't a catastrophic success that caused the problem. It was that Iraq was being run at the upper levels by a handful of screw-ups who had all sorts of ulterior motives, and at least sometimes did not have the best interests of the country at heart. And Bush is the one who put them in charge.

A reelected Bush, if he wants to win favor with historians, will have to do something impressive, statesmanlike, and out of character.

Q Do you want to expand at all on the President's comments this morning on the "Today Show," about the war on terror?

MR. McCLELLAN: What about them?

Q He said -- I'm paraphrasing here -- he said that it, specifically, could not be won, but you could make conditions safer for Americans.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he was talking about winning it in the conventional sense. That's what he was talking about. I mean, this -- you've often heard him talk about how this is a different kind of war. We face an unconventional enemy. And it's -- I don't think you can expect that there will ever be a formal surrender or a treaty signed, like we have in wars past. That's what he was talking about, when he was talking about that. It requires a generational commitment to win this war on terrorism. I think you heard him talk about his two-prong strategy, that we must continue to stay on the offensive and bring the terrorists to justice before they harm us. We also must work to advance freedom to defeat the ideologies of hatred and tyranny. So that's what he was talking about. You can't put a time frame on it, per se.

This is PRKA. To those who would oppose us, I would simply say: We are many. We are worldwide. We, in fact, outnumber you. Though you are louder, though you create a momentary ripple on the water of life, we will endure, and prevail.

Join us.

Resistance is futile.

What does President Bush need to do to win your vote? Share your thoughts as we discuss what the president needs to do on the issues of Iraq, national security, the economy and values. Send us your comments on the issue of the day, and tune in to "Wolf Blitzer Reports" at 5 p.m. ET to see how Wolf's political guests respond to viewers' e-mails.

Since the beginning of Kerry's campaign it has been clear that there were a substantial number of veterans, and Vietnam veterans in particular, whose support he would never be able to attract because of his participation in the movement against the Vietnam War. While men like John McCain and Max Cleland have been able to "put the scars of Vietnam behind them", and relate to opponents of the war without rancor or bitterness, there are still many veterans, their families and friends who cannot. At the emotional core of this group are those who lost a father, husband or other close relative or friend in the Vietnam War and for whom "making peace" with opponents of the war would feel like a betrayal of their loved one - an admission that he and his sacrifice had been forgotten. (link)

"Ask yourself the question, why is the most powerful nation on earth reduced to fighting a rag-tag "army" to a draw? Because 1.) we shouldn't be there in Iraq in the first place and 2.) Rummy is the new MacNamara. This is the height of self-deception."

Meanwhile, the full extent of the destruction inflicted on Najaf by the US military may never be fully appreciated in the U.S. itself. How many civilians did our troops kill in their campaign in a densely populated urban area against the Sadrist street gangs--especially in the first days of the conflict before most city residents fled the old city? I find chilling the words of John Burns and Dexter Filkin of the New York Times

' One of the last American actions before the cease-fire went into effect involved the use of a 2,000-pound, laser-guided bomb to strike a hotel about 130 yards from the shrine's southwest wall, in an area known to American commanders as "motel row." '

"A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more. The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity."
(Dick Cheney, Aug. 12, 2004)

I doubt the innocent citizens of Najaf or devout Muslims world-wide are very impressed either.

BOSTON (Reuters) - An explosion that blew out a number of windows at a Boston-area laboratory specializing in stem-cell research was caused by a pipe bomb, local police said on Friday.

No one was wounded in Thursday's early morning blast at Watertown, Massachusetts-based Amaranth Bio, which says on its Web site its technology is focused on organ regeneration and that it is working on cures for diabetes and liver disorders.

In a statement, Watertown police confirmed the explosion was the result of a pipe bomb and said they believe someone broke into the facility. No arrests have been made, police said.

Local radio station WBZ reported that police had identified a "person of interest" in connection with the explosion. Watertown police were not immediately available for comment on the report.

“We recognize that the Republicans of good faith may not agree with all the planks in the party’s platform. This is particularly the case with regard to those planks dealing with abortion, family planning, and gay and lesbian issues. The Republican Party welcomes all people on all sides of these complex issues and encourages their active participation as we work together on those issues on which we agree.”

Barron was outraged. He may still try to take the issue to the floor of the convention. “We’re going to let people know about this.” And as McElligot sees it, this means trouble for Bush. “If we lose in the platform fight, Bush loses in the election,” she said, suggesting that moderates are ready to bolt. “The feeling among our members is changing. We’re not voting blind. And it will be a shock come November when we pull a different lever.”

In an interview with WorldNetDaily, "Band of Brothers" member James Wasser flatly denied he told a former swiftboat crew mate that he had always despised their skipper John Kerry but "came around" after a persuasive, private meeting with the senator at the beginning of the presidential campaign.

Gunner's mate Steve Gardner, featured in the latest Swift Boat Veterans for Truth television ad challenging Kerry's war record, has been claiming on numerous TV and radio talk shows in the past month that Wasser made that statement to him in a telephone conversation in early March.

Gardner told WND he got Wasser's number from Boston Globe reporter Michael Kranish and called his old war colleague after 35 years of separation.

Recalling the conversation, Gardner, paraphrasing, says he told Wasser, "The John Kerry I know is not the John Kerry you guys are talking about. How can you campaign for him after despising the ground he walked on?"

Gardner, 56, of Clover, S.C., has speculated it's possible the men were bought off somehow, but, whatever the case, he thinks Kerry used his powers of persuasion to bring them to a glowing, positive view diametrically opposed to the one they held in Vietnam.

He claims Wasser's reply was something like this: "I felt the same way you did, buddy, but after John sat us down and talked with us for awhile, we came around to his way of thinking."

Tapper looked at the ad for "Good Morning America" in a piece that included McCain's comments and called into question the credibility of George Elliott, a Vietnam veteran who appears in the new anti-Kerry ad.

Elliott says in the ad, "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam." But back in 1996, when Kerry was running for re-election in Massachusetts, Elliott came to Kerry's defense, saying at a press conference, "The fact that he chased armed enemies down is not something to be looked down on."

*Adrian Lonsdale, who in 1996 called Kerry "among the finest of those swift boat drivers."

Wasser, reached at his home in St. Anne, Ill., says he has heard Gardner make the claim on the radio and, while acknowledging the phone call took place, strongly denies he said he had flip-flopped.

"That's abolutely, g-- d---ed false, and that's as nice as I can put it." Wasser said.

He said he still respects Gardner as a "Vietnam crew mate brother," but "I will absolutely refute that statement. It is absolutely false."

Asked to respond after hearing Wasser's denial for the first time, Gardner replied, "It was just a conversation between he and I, and he sure said it."

"I actually would have expected him to say, 'Well that's kind of what we said,'" continued Gardner. "But now, quite obviously, he's enmeshed with what's going on."

He added: "It's really a shame for those guys to allow John Kerry to get into their heads that bad."

In most advanced countries, the government provides everyone with health insurance. In America, however, the government offers insurance only if you're elderly (Medicare) or poor (Medicaid). Otherwise, you're expected to get private health insurance, usually through your job. But insurance premiums are exploding, and the system of employment-linked insurance is falling apart.

Some employers have dropped their health plans. Others have maintained benefits for current workers, but are finding ways to avoid paying benefits to new hires - for example, by using temporary workers. And some businesses, while continuing to provide health benefits, are refusing to hire more workers.

In other words, rising health care costs aren't just causing a rapid rise in the ranks of the uninsured (confirmed by yesterday's Census Bureau report); they're also, because of their link to employment, a major reason why this economic recovery has generated fewer jobs than any previous economic expansion.

Actually, at the highest level. Bush set the stage for abuse in February 2002 when he declared that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al-Qaida prisoners and that the Taliban were unlawful combatants unqualified for prisoner of war status.

When the man at the top says the usual rules don't apply, abusive excesses are a predictable result.

But as author Merrill Goozner documents in his book, The $800 Million Pill, much of the money attributed to "research" goes to advertising and copy-cat drugs rather than true breakthroughs, and much of the actual research is financed by taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health. Economist Dean Baker has calculated that only about one dollar in five that US consumers spend on inflated drug prices go to finance drug research. Baker adds up all the money contributed by taxpayers to drug companies through Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, and NIH. He concludes that it would be more cost-effective to pay for all drug research through government grants and then put the results in the public domain. Manufacturers, as in the case of aspirin, doxycycline, and other off-patent drugs, would then earn only a normal profit, and all drugs would be far cheaper.

If the administration were not hostile to the idea of drug imports or cheaper drug prices, it would be easy to set up safety spot checks. Indeed, in areas where the administration promotes free trade, it satisfies its safety concerns with spot checks of raw agricultural products imported from countries whose rudimentary sanitary standards are far less sophisticated than Canada's. To add insult to injury, the administration is actually pressing America's trading partners who have lower drug prices to raise those prices so that our high prices won't stick out like a sore thumb and tempt Americans to seek cheaper drugs from abroad.

Clinton left Bush a mess

It is true President Clinton left a mess for President Bush to clean up, and nobody wanted to help, all they did was run their mouth and complain. He is more man than the whole group are.

Why are people so unthankful they do not want God or any thing that is right. The time is coming when they will get their wish. I do not think they will like it. Whatsoever a man soweth so shall he reap. The Bible is true. Life is what we make it. So trust in the Lord.

Irene Blackburn

N. Centennial St.

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Some politicians can't stop talking; one Pennsylvania pol couldn't stop hiccuping. But the state lawmaker has now beaten the affliction after weeks in the hospital.

State Rep. Larry Roberts, a Democrat running for re-election, was back in his office Tuesday after being released from a hospital where he had been treated since July 19.

"Not only were the hiccups debilitating, but I was not allowed to have anything in my mouth, so I had to deal with a feeding tube, and that made matters worse," Roberts said in a statement Tuesday.

Neither Roberts' staff nor the House Democratic Communications Office described the cause of the chronic hiccups or the treatment that helped him get a handle on it.

Senator's camp says show good way to reach young voters

Earlier, before being clawed by Kerry's reps, we spoke to "Daily Show" executive producer Ben Karlin, a charming man who did not take offense at our questions and who promised that the Comedy Central program would try especially hard to resemble an actual TV news show tonight during its Kerry encounter.

"We're going to focus exclusively on events of 30 years or more ago . . . and not on anything relevant to anything beyond 1964," Karlin said.

(snip)

"All of us [on 'The Daily Show'] are just blown away by the turn the campaign has taken," Karlin said. "We cannot believe that this is what is being talked about at this juncture. It's so astounding to us. We are trying to work through our amazement and to conduct a meaningful conversation absent of incredulity, because [the interview] is not going to go anywhere if you just say, 'What the [expletive] is going on?' "

Karlin said he will nonetheless suggest that that be the first question Stewart puts to Kerry tonight.

"If you just want to pinpoint the success of the Republican Party and Bush, this is a perfect case study," Karlin continued, "because George W. Bush has put a moratorium on talk about his behavior under the age of 40 and everyone [in the press] is abiding by it. 'Were you or were you not an alcoholic or did you just have a drinking problem?,' 'Were you or were you not a drug abuser?' Meanwhile they're debating whether [Kerry's war] wounds drew blood or were they superficial, or occurred in the same day, or whether he shot a guy wearing a toga. . . . How is that possible?"

Under growing pressure to ship Marines to Iraq, the Marine Corps is cutting in half the rigorous field combat training it gives units preparing to deploy, senior officers say.

The Marines hope to make up the time by intensifying this final, pre-deployment training and focusing it on skills needed to survive and prevail in Iraq's brutal combat conditions. This means practicing more nighttime operations, ambushes, city fighting and guarding of convoys.

Vets call for resignation of Clackamas prosecutor in Swift Boat ad

Alfred French, 58, a senior deputy district attorney, appeared in the recent ad by the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth and said: "I served with John Kerry. . . . He is lying about his record." French also signed a legal affadavit attesting to the claim.

But French, in an interview with The Oregonian newspaper last week, said he was relying on the accounts of three other veterans when he said Kerry lied.

"I was not a witness to these events but my friends were," said French, who was awarded two Bronze Stars during the war.

That acknowledgement fueled Monday's protest, where the veterans contended French is unfit to serve as a prosecutor after swearing to facts that he never personally witnessed.

(snip)

Before recording the ad, French did indeed sign an affidavit that said: "I am able to swear, as I do hereby swear, that all facts and statements contained in this affidavit are true and correct and within my personal knowledge and belief."

In a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked the department to determine if it can rewrite the rule on its own. He noted that several proposals have been offered in Congress that would modify or eliminate the so-called "use-it-or-lose-it" provision.

"The current rule unjustly enriches employers at the expense of hard-working employees who participate in FSAs (flexible spending accounts)," Grassley wrote. "Modifying this rule would help millions of Americans meet their health care expenses and make the FSA rules more rational."

NEW YORK (AP) - A disappointing sales forecast from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. sent stocks mostly lower Monday as investors worried that oil prices, which stabilized after last week's highs, would curb consumer spending and hurt companies' third-quarter earnings.

The New Freedom Initiative proposes to screen every American, including you, for mental illness. To this end, the president established a New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, to study the nation’s mental health delivery service and make a report. It’s interesting to note that many on the staff appointed to the Commission have served on the advisory boards of some of the nation’s largest drug companies.

The commission reported that “despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed,” so it recommended comprehensive mental health screening for “consumers of all ages,” including preschool children because “each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional disorders.”

Children and school personnel will be the first to be screened. The panel concluded that schools are in “key positions” to screen the 52 million students and six million adults who work at the schools. By doing this, the commission expects to flush out another six million persons not now receiving treatment. But who will decide the screening criteria? Bush and his people? The drug companies? What are their qualifications?

A wide swath of occupations, including some registered nurses, nursery school teachers, store and restaurant managers, computer workers, funeral directors and chefs are likely to lose their eligibility for overtime pay.

On the other hand, the new rules guarantee that anyone earning $23,660 a year or less is eligible for overtime. Until now, only workers who made less than $8,060 a year qualified automatically. The administration says 1.3 million lower-income and "blue collar" workers in fields such as retail, manufacturing, food service and hospitality industries will gain from this change.

Other likely losers are in a new category of "highly compensated" workers who will be exempt from overtime pay. They earn at least $100,000 annually and perform some administrative or executive duty such as managing one or more employees.

Police, firefighters and other "first responders," plus practical nurses, health therapists and some military veterans, are exempt from the curb and are eligible for overtime regardless of their earnings. Also exempt - from any part of the rules - are union members who are working under collective-bargaining agreements.

Some provisions do not apply in states with wage and hour laws that offer greater worker protections than the new federal rules. The states' rules apply in those cases. The states involved are: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The U.S. Department of Labor is working with officials and employers in those states to clarify the situation.

Critics of the new rules worry that roughly 6 million workers, most of whom earn $23,600 to $100,000, could lose overtime pay depending on the way their employers interpret the rules and define their jobs.

Activists for both candidates showed up at the event, with more than 70 Kerry supporters competing with a smaller, pro-Bush contingent.

...that if elected president, he would "jawbone" OPEC members by calling them and saying "we expect you to open your spigots."

Researchers in various localities have blamed the trouble on diseases, pollutants, and predators. But that fails to explain any larger pattern.

KENNEBUNK, Maine — America's top speed-eater wolfed down 38 lobsters in 12 minutes Saturday to win the World Lobster Eating Contest.

Sonya Thomas of Alexandria, Va., won $500 and a trophy belt for consuming 9.76 pounds of lobster.

"While we must assume that such a threat exists generally, we have no specific information now about any al-Qaeda threats to our food or drug supply," said Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the Homeland Security Department.

"Cues from chatter" gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford says.

Crawford said the possibility of such an attack was the most serious of his concerns about the increase in states and municipalities trying to import drugs from Canada to save money.

This new Internet ad features Senator John McCain rebuking then candidate Bush for refusing to disavow or condemn hateful and vicious attacks on McCain’s military record.

...while the group appears to be rooted in Republican politics and big money, several veterans who signed the letter said in interviews yesterday that they are casually into politics and generally are not convinced that Kerry is lying, but they do not like the candidate because of his polarizing speeches in the 1970s.

James Zumwalt, who attended the group's first news conference in May, said he joined the group solely to set the record straight about the allegations of war crimes included in "Tour of Duty," a Douglas Brinkley book about Kerry's Vietnam service. Now, Zumwalt says, "I kind of have mixed feelings" about the tone of the group's attacks. "I would not try to question the awards given to him or his service."

"The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," Rood said in a 1,700-word first-person account published in Sunday's Tribune.

(snip)

...I know that what some people are saying now is wrong," Rood wrote. "While they mean to hurt Kerry, what they're saying impugns others who are not in the public eye."

United Airlines, moving closer to a cost-cutting change feared by employees and retirees, said it probably would cancel its pension plans in hopes that the move would help the carrier emerge from bankruptcy proceedings.

(snip)

United, a subsidiary of UAL Corp., already has stopped making contributions to its four pension plans. They are $8.3 billion short of what would be needed now to fully fund future retiree obligations, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a federal agency that insures corporate pension plans and stands to inherit United's obligations if the airline scraps its plans.

For the last three years, American policy has called for a freeze of "all settlement activity," including "natural growth" brought about by an increase in the birthrate and other factors. As a result, when settlement expansions have been announced, American officials have called them violations.

After the latest Israeli announcement, however, administration spokesmen said they were withholding judgment.

"What we have asked of the Israeli government is to let us know what it is that they are doing," Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said Thursday in answer to a question at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.

Bush Would Have Kept Medals If He Had Earned Any, Says Hughes

Iraq Might Have Used WMD's Against United States If They Had Any

Having failed to find banned weapons in Iraq, the CIA is preparing a final report on its search that will speculate on what the deposed regime's capabilities might have looked like years from now if left unchecked, according to congressional and intelligence officials.

The CIA plans for the report, due next month, to project as far as 2008 what Iraq might have achieved in its illegal weapons programs if the United States had not invaded the country last year, the officials said.

The new direction of the inquiry is seen by some officials as an attempt to obscure the fact that no banned weapons — or even evidence of active programs — have been found, and instead emphasize theories that Iraq may have been planning to revive its programs.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A rare shipping industry cattle call for lucrative temporary dockworker jobs drew more than 300,000 applications for a special lottery Thursday to fill 3,000 slots at the nation's largest port complex.

Severe cargo congestion and labor shortages at American seaports are creating long delays in delivering goods and potential threats to national security, dockworkers and security experts say.

The problems are particularly acute at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest, handling roughly a third of the nine million cargo containers that arrive in the United States each year.

(snip)

(David Arian, president of Local 13 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which works the Los Angeles waterfront) said that terminal operators had begun to hire small numbers of additional workers to handle the freight backlog but that as many as 13,000 extra full- and part-time waterfront workers were needed in the Los Angeles ports alone.(NY Times)

A donkey cart beat a Porsche sports car in a mile-long race on the congested roads of Viana do Castelo, northern Portugal, to demonstrate the town's need for a new ring road.

The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority's own Inspector General blasts the CPA for "not providing adequate stewardship" of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries.

(snip)

Among the draft audit's findings were that payrolls in Iraqi ministries under Coalition Provisional Authority control were padded with thousands of ghost employees.

In one example, the audit said the CPA paid for 74,000 guards even though the actual number could not be validated. In another, 8,206 guards were listed on a payroll but only 603 people doing the work could be counted.

The almost 6" x 12" official absentee ballot mailing envelope is much larger than a standard 4-1/8" x 9-1/2" business envelope. The clerks at my local post office confirmed my suspicion that extra postage is necessary for delivery. You need $0.49 of postage, not a $0.37 stamp as printed in the official instructions!!!

A relentless rise in the cost of employee health insurance has become a significant factor in the employment slump, as the labor market adds only a trickle of new jobs each month despite nearly three years of uninterrupted economic growth.

Government data, industry surveys and interviews with employers big and small indicate that many businesses remain reluctant to hire full-time employees because health insurance, which now costs the nation's employers an average of about $3,000 a year for each worker, has become one of the fastest-growing costs for companies. Health premiums are sapping corporate balance sheets even more than the rising cost of energy.

Businesses, meanwhile, are trying all kinds of coping strategies. Some companies have responded by shifting part of the health insurance burden onto their workers or by ratcheting up premiums and deductibles. Some have eliminated coverage for dependents, while others have canceled their medical plans altogether. Many have frozen or reduced wages to compensate for ever bigger health insurance bills.

A centerpiece of Mr. Kerry's plan would be to reduce health insurance premiums by having the federal government pick up 75 percent of the cost of catastrophic medical care. That would reduce the cost to employers and employees about 10 percent, or $1,000 a year, according to campaign officials.

German men are being shamed into urinating while sitting down by a gadget which is saving millions of women from cleaning up in the bathroom after them.

The WC ghost, a £6 voice-alarm, reprimands men for standing at the lavatory pan. It is triggered when the seat is lifted. The battery-operated devices are attached to the seats and deliver stern warnings to those who attempt to stand and urinate (known as "Stehpinkeln").

"Hey, stand-peeing is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don't want any trouble, you'd best sit down," one of the devices orders in a voice impersonating the German leader, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Another has a voice
similar to that of his predecessor, Helmut Kohl.

The manufacturers of the WC ghost, Patentwert, say they are ready to direct their gadgets at the British market.

Their prototype English-speaking WC ghost says in an American drawl: "Don't you go wetting this floor cowboy, you never know who's behind you. So sit down, get your water pistol in the bowl where it belongs. Ha, ha, ha."

They also plan to copy the voices of Tony Blair and the Queen.

So far 1.8 million WC ghosts have been sold in German supermarkets.

But Klaus Schwerma, author of Standing Urinators: The Last Bastion of Masculinity? doubts whether it will ever be possible to convert all men.

"Many insist on standing, even though it leads to much marital strife," he said.

In German, the phrase for someone who sits and urinates, a "Sitzpinkler", is equivalent to "wimp".

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Yasser Arafat acknowledged Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority has made "mistakes," but the rare admission appeared to be aimed more at deflecting criticism about his corrupt government than making real changes.

Sharon OKs 1,000 new homes in West Bank settlements

U.S. withholds judgment on Israeli plan for 1,000 new homes in West Bank settlements

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - A top Republican congressman has broken from his party in the final days of his House career, saying he believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified and the situation there has deteriorated into "a dangerous, costly mess."

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Rep. Doug Bereuter wrote in a letter to his constituents.

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said.

"I think those who oppose this ballistic missile system don't understand the threats of the 21st century," the president told applauding workers.

The president noted that last month Boeing engineers loaded the first missile interceptor into a silo in Alaska. He characterized that as the beginning of a national shield "that was envisioned by Ronald Reagan."

Bush said opponents of the system are "living in the past. We're living in the future. We're going to do what's necessary to protect this country."

After Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, he saw "the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, 'Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased' " (Mark 1:10-11, Revised Standard Version).

Compare that with this new translation: "A pigeon flew down and perched on him. Jesus took this as a sign that God's Spirit was with him. A voice from overhead was heard saying, 'That's my boy!' "

There are many such chatty or doctrinally denuded passages in Good as New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures, an exceedingly loose New Testament paraphrase by Britain's John Henson, a fundamentalist-hating Baptist.

(snip)

The Apostle Paul taught that "each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband" and that if unmarried singles or widows "cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (1 Corinthians 7:2,9).

Henson's version: "My advice is for everyone to have a regular partner. ... If you know you have strong needs, get yourself a partner. Better than being frustrated!" Likewise, Henson has Jesus rewriting the Ten Commandments: "Don't take away someone else's partner" (Matthew 5:27).

In 2004, this clearly implies approval for unwed heterosexual and homosexual couples, possibly including temporary live-ins.

Henson simply chops out things he doesn't like.

For obvious reasons, one currently debated Bible passage is this from Paul: "God gave them up to dishonourable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men" (Romans 1:26-27).

Wielding a censor's blue pencil, Hensom produces:

"God let them go on to pursue their selfish desires. Women use their charms to further their own ends. Men, instead of being friends, ruthlessly exploit one another."

Henson even cuts out eight entire New Testament books that don't suit him: 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will arrive in Charlotte on Thursday to attend a function Friday morning at Central Piedmont Community College.

Kerry's speech will start at 9 a.m. at the Grady Cole Center on 310 N. Kings Drive. The candidate will discuss plans to create jobs, build a stronger economy and provide better access to health care.

Organizers are expecting between 500 and 700 people to attend the invitation-only event, but there might be unused tickets. To put your name on a waiting list for tickets, call the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party at (704) 525-5843.

MATTHEWS: We‘re back with Matthew Dowd of the Bush campaign and Tad Devine of the Kerry campaign. Well, you never know what‘s what‘s coming next. It‘s heating up. Today Senator Harkin who was a Navy pilot. He‘s the senator from Iowa. He slammed Vice President Dick Cheney calling him a coward over Cheney‘s ridiculing of John Kerry‘s assertion that he would fight a more sensitive war on terror.

Quote—this is Harkin speaking, the senator from Iowa. “I just outrages me that someone who got five deferments during Vietnam and said he had ‘other priorities‘ at that time would say that... When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil. He‘ll be tough, but he‘ll be tough with someone else‘s kid‘s blood.”

He called him a coward a number of times, Matt. Your response?

DOWD: I think it‘s just outrageous that Tom Harkin, a surrogate for the Kerry campaign, that would do it. Bill Clinton served the presidency with distinction without having served in Vietnam or in a war. Ronald Reagan served a presidency with distinction without having served a war or in a world war. And I think this name-calling is very unfortunate that has to happen in this environment.

MATTHEWS: Tad, your turn?

DEVINE: Well, first, Chris, I think we just made some history. We‘ve heard the Bush campaign say that Bill Clinton served the presidency with distinction. That‘s a breakthrough. We‘ve turned the corner on that one, I‘ll tell you that.

President Bush on Monday announced that 70,000 U.S. troops based overseas would be brought home under a massive global redeployment plan that could cost billions of dollars before it begins to produce any savings.

Over the past week, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have thrown Sen. John F. Kerry on the defensive with a daily assault designed to tarnish his credentials as a possible commander in chief. But the orchestrated attacks also revealed the president's vulnerabilities on the issue that continues to shape the presidential campaign as much as any other.

The volleys over terrorism came after Kerry and his advisers believed they had put behind them most questions about his capacity to lead the country in a war on terrorism. Instead, Kerry and his advisers allowed themselves to be drawn into a new debate about Iraq and terrorism and were forced to rebut daily charges that Kerry has equivocated and sent conflicting signals on national security.

Sometimes in baseball a batter decides to take a pitch. He's decided in advance that he's not going to swing no matter what comes down the pike. But in most cases, when a batter steps up to the plate, he doesn't decide whether he's going to swing until he sees the pitch. Only an idiot decides in advance not knowing what he's going to face. And yet this is roughly what the Bush camp says was the only reasonable, or I suppose manly, approach to the Iraq war.

One of FEMA's institutional problems was that it was a product of the Cold War, and many of its resources were devoted to dealing with a possible nuclear attack on the United States. After taking office, (James Lee) Witt worked to redirect those resources to help with disaster relief. Said Zensinger: "The thinking was: `We didn't have the Cold War anymore. Why don't [we] pay more attention to domestic issues?' "

Witt has also made the agency more responsive to the victims of natural disasters. By implementing a toll-free hot line and upgrading the agency's technology, Witt has helped to reduce from an average of 30 days to just five to 10 days the time it takes for victims to apply for and receive federal financial assistance.

In addition, Witt has made disaster mitigation one of his priorities. He created a program called Project Impact, which targets communities where disasters are likely to occur. Under the program, communities form partnerships with both the government and the private sector to enforce stricter building codes and to strengthen existing infrastructure. FEMA has also moved or bought 19,000 homes that are prone to massive flooding. According to Dale Shipley, the executive director of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, mitigation has been Witt's greatest achievement. "That's his legacy, I think," Shipley said.

a crisis and emergency management consulting firm based in Washington, DC with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, and Sacramento. JLWA has unrivaled experience and hands-on knowledge of public safety, disaster mitigation, continuity of operations, and emergency management issues. JLWA bridges government agencies and non-profits with industry and constituents, advises educational institutions, and assists state and local governments, as well as international bodies to prepare for and recover from disasters and crises.

James Lee Witt Associates (JLWA) has been selected by Pennsylvania Campus Compact (PACC) to work with Pennsylvania colleges and universities on the Ready Campus initiative.

Ready Campus, a partnership among educational institutions and their neighboring communities, is designed to strengthen the preparation for and response to emergencies by using campus facilities and training campus volunteers.

Hurricane Charley left a swath of devastation across southwestern Florida Saturday, with reports of fatalities at mobile home parks, after it struck with unexpectedly strong winds that caused widespread damage estimated in the billions of dollars.

The worst loss of life was reported in Punta Gorda, a community on Florida's Gulf coat that is home to many retirees.

(CNN) - Huge cheers went up for the Afghanistani team, returning to Olympic competition after an eight year absence, and for the competitors from the Pacific atolls of Kiribati, which makes its Olympic debut. The Iraqi and U.S. teams also received warm receptions.

Washington, DC – General Merrill McPeak released the following statement today responding to the attacks Vice President Cheney made today in Dayton, OH:

“Let's get the record straight. No one disputes these facts: John Kerry volunteered for active military service when many others—including President Bush and Vice President Cheney—found a way to avoid it. He came under intense hostile fire, was wounded three times and was decorated for gallantry. Do the President and Vice President really want to have a debate about who is more suited to fight the war in Iraq and the war on terror? Do they really want a debate about which candidate has the toughness to make America stronger?”

-Michael W. Smith, one of the top stars in contemporary Christian music who has occasionally crossed over to the pop charts.

-The Gatlin Brothers, who have been performing for four decades in country music and had a string of hits in the 1970s and 1980s. They cut back on nationwide touring in 1992.

-Daniel Rodriguez, a former New York City policeman and tenor who became well known singing a capella versions of "God Bless America" and the national anthem after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

-Sara Evans, one of the promising young performers in country music who has had a number of hits on the country charts. In 1998, she had a hit album "No Place That Far" and the title song on the album became her first No. 1 hit.

Other entertainers at the convention include Dana Glover, a young performer, who sang on the soundtrack for the movie "Shrek," veteran actor Ron Silver, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of daytime talk show "The View" and surfer-turned-singer Daize Shayne.

It’s off to the mountains I go,
Though the rain and wind do blow.

To make his most critical point, Mr. Rumsfeld cited H. L. Mencken to warn of solutions that are “simple, neat, and wrong.”

He said that strong intelligence required competitive analysis and multiple sources of information rather than “group think.”

“This is a very complicated subject,” he said. “We’re in the middle of a war. If you’re going to tear down what is, you darn well better be rather certain about what you’re going to put in its place.”

US to Speed Up Immigrant Deportations, Extend Visits for Mexicans

The day before President Bush was to campaign in Arizona and New Mexico, the Homeland Security Department announced it would hasten deportations of illegal immigrants who are not Mexican or Canadian citizens.

The department also said it would grant legal Mexican visitors up to one month, rather than just three days, to visit or do business in U.S. communities close to the southern border.

The specter of widespread boos in Athens every time "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played is not far-fetched -- and is much on the minds of the people at NBC. The possibility of the American team's being lustily booed as it enters the Olympic Stadium on Friday night also makes NBC cringe.

I asked a publicist at NBC Sports about possible anti-U.S. protests in Athens. "Of course, we've discussed it," he said nervously, "but I'm really not at liberty to say anything more." Click.

(snip)

If such protests, as seems likely, do arise, NBC will be in a tight spot: Show too much of them and they'll be called Bush-bashers on Fox News and elsewhere. Play down or try to hide them, and they'll be criticized for trying to sweep them under the rug.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan cautioned Monday that information may be more limited about future raids against al-Qaida suspects.

A Pakistani security official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that despite failing to capture some al-Qaida suspects after Khan's arrest, the country's security agencies were chasing them and would eventually get them.

The official would not reveal the names or nationalities of the fugitives who evaded arrest.

The productivity of American workers rose at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the spring, the slowest increase since late 2002, the government reported Tuesday.

The Labor Department said the increase in productivity, the output of workers for each hour worked, in the April-June quarter, followed a 3.7 percent rate of increase in the first quarter.

STONELEIGH, England (Reuters) - Nigel Roder beat six rivals by public acclaim on Saturday to become England's first official jester for more than 350 years, succeeding Muckle John who lost his job when King Charles 1 was beheaded in 1649.

(snip)

""It feels good. I am a national fool now. It is the best thing a man can be," he said after his victory."

The volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat had been slumbering for centuries when it awoke in 1995. Amid the banana groves and breadfruit trees of their tourist paradise, the islanders hoped that its eruptions would soon subside. Instead, within two years, 7,000 people - roughly two-thirds of the population - had to flee escalating explosions of rock, ash and toxic gas.

Most went to other Caribbean islands or to Britain, which colonized Montserrat in the 17th century and still governs it. Fewer than 300 ended up in the United States, mostly living with relatives in New York and Boston. Since it was unsafe to send them back after their visitors' visas expired, the United States granted the Montserratians "temporary protected status," renewed year by year so they could legally stay and work until the worst was over.

Now, in a startling twist that reflects a major change in immigration politics, the Department of Homeland Security is ordering the 292 Montserratians to leave by the end of February - not because it is safe to go home again, but because it is not going to be safe anytime soon.

"The volcanic activity causing the environmental disaster in Montserrat is not likely to cease in the foreseeable future," Homeland Security officials explained in a June 25 notice ending Montserratians' temporary protected status effective Feb. 27, 2005. "Therefore it no longer constitutes a temporary disruption of living conditions that temporarily prevents Montserrat from adequately handling the return of its nationals."

The decision has stunned islanders who rebuilt their lives in America from scratch. "It's devastating," said Sarah Ryner, 59, a public health nurse supervisor who lost her home and career in the volcanic aftermath and now works night shifts at a New Jersey hospital. "I'm just frozen, and my children are the same. We are saying: What can we do? Where can we go?"

Homeland Security officials have an answer: Move to England.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was invited to monitor the election by the State Department. The observers will come from the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

(snip)

"The U.S. is obliged to invite us, as all OSCE countries should," spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir said. "It's not legally binding, but it's a political commitment. They signed a document 10 years ago to ask OSCE to observe elections."

G.S. 105-164.13C provides an exemption for certain items of tangible personal property sold between 12:01 A.M. on the first Friday in August and 11:59 P.M. the following Sunday. For 2004, the dates are Friday, August 6th through Sunday, August 8th. Clothing, footwear, and school supplies of $100 or less per item; sports and recreation equipment of $50 or less per item; and computers of $3,500 or less per item will be exempt.

Voters don't want a lieutenant for president. They want a commander-in-chief. After all, why did Cleland lose despite his heroism? Why did draft dodger Clinton beat war hero Bob Kerrey in 1992 primaries? Why didn't Bob Dole win in 1996?

Voters want a president with brains, not just guts, and all they saw was a warrior telling his old tales on Thursday night. And it wasn't enough.

With each weapons lab and bomb factory our troops find, the credibility of the left wing of the Democratic Party will go down the drain, not to rise again for many years. In retrospect, they will seem as misguided as the appeasers of Munich were and their political fortunes will be just as doomed.

(snip)

President Bush’s poll ratings going into the war are slipping. His job approval appears to have dipped below 60 percent, less than Bill Clinton had during his entire second term. But they will be very high coming out of Iraq. And that’s what will matter.

Our cities are being destroyed by dysgenic welfare and immigration. Why does Detroit look like it was hit by a nuclear bomb and Hiroshima look like it was on the side that won the war? Everyone knows the answer but is afraid to say. Because genes have a more devastating effect on civilization than nuclear bombs, and the reason for Detroit's decline is that there are less 'favored races' in Detroit with an average IQ of 85 and more 'favored races' in Japan with an average IQ of 104. (It is noted there are less 'favored races'* in Africa south of the Sahara with an average IQ of 70-75, which accounts for the extreme poverty there.) Richard Lynn's book, 'IQ and the Wealth of Nations' has clearly shown that the prosperity of a nation is determined in large measure by the average IQ of the population.

((James Hart, Republican candidate, Tennessee 8th congressional district)

(Emphasis mine)

Two members of a group of Iraqi visitors who were barred from city hall because of a councilman's blunder were robbed a day later on a Memphis street, police said Wednesday.

(snip)

Two members of the group, identified by police as Rwad Fanary and Liza Hido, were walking along a downtown street Tuesday when they were accosted by a man with a handgun.

Police said the robber got away with an undisclosed amount of money, travelers checks and a camera. No one was hurt, and no arrests were made.

The Iraqis were scheduled to visit city hall Monday but council chairman Joe Brown objected, saying they were security risks. The group met with another city council member at a different location to talk about Memphis government.

Mayor Willie Herenton, who was not informed that the group would be visiting, issued a statement Wednesday apologizing for their reception at city hall. The council also issued a statement of apology.

Hiring by U.S. employers slowed significantly in July, according to a government report Friday, as the number of new jobs added to payrolls came in far below Wall Street expectations.

The Labor Department report showed only 32,000 new net jobs added to payrolls during the month, down from a revised 78,000 jobs that were added in June. The increase was the smallest since December.

Sometimes this rush to be in front of the camera “doing something” is just embarrassing and silly, as when first term state legislators try to ban this season’s teen fad because they find it offensive. Sometimes it creates real problems, as with mandatory sentencing guidelines. Sometimes it endangers the republic, as when congress passed the Patriot Act without actually reading it first.

Once again, the Middle East shows itself to be the third rail of American politics. With the exception of retired leaders like Jimmy Carter and George McGovern and brave writers like Richard Ben Cramer, no one dares to open his mouth about what is obviously the main irritant in our relationship with fundamentalist Islam: We are contemptuous of the Palestinians’ rights to self-determination.

(snip)

It (9/11 Commission) ascribes the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to such vague sociocultural factors as stagnant economies and “the decline from Islam’s golden age.” The kids there are jealous of our wealth and freedom. The “indifference, cynicism and despair” of autocratic Arab societies are all to blame. Our policy in Israel has nothing to do with it.

(snip)

Everyone wants to say that the people who died on Sept. 11 died for something meaningful. The commission’s answer is reform of the intelligence bureaucracy—something that will never be reformed. The way to make sure the victims of 9/11 died for something meaningful would be to reform our policy in the Middle East.

Two young supporters of DFL congressional candidate Leigh Pomeroy were turned away from President Bush's quarry rally in Mankato yesterday.

Nick Burkhardt and Matt Klaber of Mankato initially were denied rally tickets after making unfavorable comments about the president while waiting in line for three hours. They later were given tickets, but when they got off the shuttle bus at the quarry they were told they couldn't go in.

They agreed to leave, but a Mankato West High School teacher who was accompanying them says he also was asked to leave when he tried to defend the boys.

Global geography teacher Jim Walz said he wanted to stay and was told by a Bush official that he would be arrested and escorted out if he made any attempt to protest during the rally.

Walz says if appearances by the President of the United States are treated as private political events, then cities are right to bill the campaign for the expenses of local law enforcement.

...police told protesters they had to move about 200 feet away, while the people supporting Bush remained in place, the atmosphere grew tense. When protesters complained to local police, they replied, "We're just following orders." Then the protesters called the media: It was time for citizens to know how democracy was working in Springfield, as protesters had been herded into a "free speech zone."

When gatekeepers announced final seating for those with tickets, protesters with tickets tried to get in, but their tickets were grabbed and torn up, and police threatened them with arrest if they argued back. One woman screamed, "You're tearing up my ticket," and hit back at the man when he started shoving her with his chest, trying to shut her up. The police arrested the woman. Two other people were "taken down": a young girl who could not back up fast enough because there were so many people behind her and a man who is charged with trespassing because he was standing on property his own tax dollars partially funded.

All this, while the Bush supporters passed by, granted access to the president of us all because they would shout his praises at the appropriate moments.

Some New Mexicans who wanted to hear Vice President Dick Cheney speak in Rio Rancho were refused tickets Thursday unless they signed a pledge to endorse President Bush.

Bush campaign spokesman Dan Foley says it was a security step meant to avoid a disruption of Saturday's speech.

"Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whispered in my ear, 'America is under attack,' I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had something that he needed to attend to -- and I would have attended to it," Kerry told the Unity conference of minority journalists in response to a question about what he would done.

Kerry drew a warm response for his speech, with about three out of four standing in applause at one point. 

The U.S. men's Olympic team did more than merely lose. It was embarrassed and exposed in its most lopsided defeat since adding NBA players in 1992.

The Bush-Cheney campaign accuses Senate Democrats of blocking a Bush energy plan that would increase petroleum drilling and energy conservation and provide new tax breaks and other incentives to spur exploration and production.

“If you don’t show up, you’re absent without leave, by definition,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics under Ronald Reagan from 1981-1985, Lawrence J. Korb. “You would be put on active duty and sent wherever they needed you.”

Korb examined Bush’s payroll records Monday. Asked if he thought Bush was AWOL, he said, “Based on these payroll records, unless he had permission, it would be.”

Bush could not have gotten permission, which he would have needed to get in advance, because he did not yet know of the months he was going to miss until May 1972. It (was) not until May 1972 that he was offered a position to campaign in an Alabama Senate campaign – well after all the trainings that he might have applied.

Further, transferring credits from year to year is in violation of military law. It is also in violation of the Uniform Code of Airforce Policy, which states that duty must be served 15 days before or 30 days after the scheduled service date.

The Statue of Liberty reopens to visitors today for the first time since the September 11, 2001, attacks following security and safety improvements paid for by more than $42 million in donations.

But the event is shadowed by criticism that the crown remains off-limits and visitors will still not be able to make the 22-storey climb of more than 350 steps to the top.

In an effort to worry the public and convince them to vote for us again next year, and because George Bush asked us to, this website includes the common sense advice found in the Preparing for Emergencies booklet, and information on what the government is doing to protect the country as a whole. (Hint: we're praying really, really hard).

“The Emergency Planning Society believes that this booklet provides valuable and common sense advice for the public, just in case they're stupid and can't work it out on their own"

The Government is working hard to make sure that the UK is as prepared as it can be in the event of an emergency, and it is important that you are ready too.

No, that's a lie. I'm sorry, I can't keep it up. The Government is working hard to get re-elected, and to give themselves more money. Your safety's maybe number ten on the priority list, just below stopping Euan Blair going on another drinking binge and keeping George Bush from blowing the world up again.

If you are involved in any emergency it is important to:
Run like hell, particularly if you caused the emergency.
Trample all others in your desperate attempt to escape.
Loot on the way out.

Mr. Bush's advisers plan to cap the month at the Republican convention in New York, which they said would feature Mr. Kerry as an object of humor and calculated derision.

This is potent stuff. And Democrats would do well not only to be on their guard but consider applying this approach to the current president, who is more than a bit ripe for such treatment.

In the government's latest survey of how frequently workers are permanently dismissed from their jobs, the layoff rate reached 8.7 percent of all adult jobholders, or 11.4 million men and women age 20 or older. That is nearly equal to the 9 percent rate for the 1981-1983 period, which included the steepest contraction in the American economy since the Great Depression.

(snip)

Pay is another matter. In the latest survey, 56.9 percent of those who said they were re-employed also said they were earning less in their new jobs than in the jobs they had lost. That compared with 46.6 percent from 1991 through 1993, a similar period of recession followed by weak recovery, and 42.2 percent from 1997 through 1999, which were boom years.

The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, received the strongest challenge yet from a protege when Mohammad Dahlan, a former interior minister, accused him of squandering $US5 billion ($7.1 billion) and "sitting on the corpses" of Palestinians.

Mr Dahlan, 43, said that if Mr Arafat did not begin to reform the Palestinian Authority, massive demonstrations would be held in Gaza City next Tuesday.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Watan quoted him as saying: "Arafat is sitting on the corpses and destruction of the Palestinians at a time when they're desperately in need of a new mentality."

All of the funds that foreign countries had donated to the Palestinian Authority, a total of $US5 billion, "have gone down the drain, and we don't know to where," he added.

the Bush administration has long made clear its objection to having officials who work in the West Wing on the president's staff subject to congressional oversight. Before the creation of the Department of Homeland Security elevated him from presidential aide to Cabinet secretary, homeland security chief Tom Ridge sparred with the Senate over whether he should have to come to Capitol Hill to answer questions from members of Congress.

In addition, putting an intelligence "czar" in the White House exposes the president to direct blame for future intelligence failures. In the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the mistaken intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Bush was somewhat insulated from criticism because much of the blame fell not on the White House but on the CIA. While CIA Director George Tenet met almost daily with Bush, the agency and Tenet's office are physically separate from the White House.

One aspiring Miss America took her trained pigeons up on stage. But when a stage light blew, according to pageant lore, the surprised birds flew off stage, raining droppings on the audience.

Miss Cincinnati 1943 Joan Hyldoft planned to ice skate, but her rink melted and she had to make do with just her skates, executing jumps and axels on a bare floor. Miss Montana 1949 Carol Fraser rode a palomino horse onto the Convention Center stage -- and the horse stumbled and nearly fell into the orchestra pit.

A Miss Nebraska accidentally threw a flaming baton into the judges' pit one year. That led to a ban on props that could hurt someone.

Then there was Miss America 1959 Mary Ann Mobley, who performed a mock striptease. She took the stage in a gown, singing the start of an aria before stripping down to a pair of shorts and a slip to belt out "There'll Be Some Changes Made."

So much for stripping. It, too, was banned.

(Julia Sugarbaker): I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway.

Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept.

And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks!

And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face!

And that, Marjorie --- just so you will know --- and your children will someday know --- is the night the lights went out in Georgia!