Remember the Palestinian woman ululating in the streets with glee after 9/11? How that felt?

Or, better yet, remember the pride Falwell himself took in lecturing us about how America brought 9/11 upon itself by, well, by believing in freedom and civil liberties and all that?

Talk about grave dancing--using the deaths of 3,000 innocent people to further your own power-grabbing, hate-filled agenda. How is what he did any better than what the Palestinians did?

And, no, he never really apologized for it. And he repeated similar sentiments later. And then Dinsesh D'What-his-name wrote an entire book repeating the same anti-American vengefulness.

Death doesn't magically redeem evil, bigoted people. Oh, and if you're OK with his hatred of gays, go read some of the stuff he wrote about African-Americans and "misgenation" in the 50's and 60's.

The guy was Fred Phelps with a (slightly) better education and wardrobe. But then, when Phelps kicks it, I'll probably be told I should respect him too because "he was a fellow human being," as if sharing the same species designation means nothing you do should be criticized after you die.

But--re:

To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, take Leviticus Chapter 25... Please.

Wasn't that Henny Youngman?

Oy, I'm getting.

A couple weeks ago (July 6) I actually missed a connecting flight from Philadelphis to Manchester because I had to spend well over an hour waiting in the security line (I had already spent over an hour in the UK earlier that day, but international passengers have to go through it AGAIN if making a connection inside the US).

Anyway, the plane hadn't left yet when I finally got there, but they had already given my seat away. The employee at the check-in counter clearly thought it was my fault, as she kept repeating to me "You weren't there. We couldn't save the seat for you" as if I'd been goofing off for 2 hours instead of waiting in security lines and racing through the airport and riding on shuttles to try to get to my terminal.

Anyway, my question is--has anyone at TSA ever actually found anything dangerous in all the lip gloss, toothpaste, and breast milk bottles they've confiscated? I'm sure they've collected 100s of thousands of these things, but I've never heard of them announcing "A-ha! We found an explosive liquid hidden in this bottle of shampoo!"

Wasn't this whole anti-liquid hysteria based on an obscure, outdated e-mail from somebody pondering the remote possibility of using liquid exposives to make a bomb? Is there any realistic basis at all for this bizarre anti-lip gloss policy?

So, if I'm reading this correctly, Kagan is saying it is the troops' fault that Iraq hasn't been won yet, right? If they would just stop goofing around over there and get the job done, they could return home to their cushy lives stateside.

Remind me again which side of this debate doesn't support the troops?

Just another in a series of monumental failures by a spoiled brat who has always had the luxury of getting bailed out every time he ran a company into the ground or got arrested for DUI or failed to show up for National Guard service.

Daddy's rich friends always fixed everything for little Georgie, and the lesson he learned was not that he was damned lucky to have a daddy to spoil him, but that he could do no wrong, that whatever he wanted he could just wave his hand and make it so.

It is inconceivable to him--in the Princess Bride sense!--that he could ever fail.

The religious right will get out and vote for the candidate that will deliver the most power and money (that is, our tax money, in the form of subsidies and "faith based" charities).

They will make a lot of stink and noise, but the events of the last decade or so have proven that these people don't really care about personal morality in their allies, only in their enemies. If Rudy gets the nod, he just has to promise them that their cash flow won't get interrupted, and they'll be on board.

I live in an upper-middle class suburb of LA. My elementary school aged kids (1 boy, 1 girl) dress pretty much exclusively in Target clothes. Looking around at their friends, I can see that they're all in clothes that I recognize from the racks at Target.

Seriously--am I really marooned on an island somewhere, or completely unaware of what's going on? I just don't see this. In Manhattan or Beverly Hills or something? Or wherever this magazine article authors live?

When everyone first started talking about the supposed "rift" between Giuliani, I knew it was bogus. The only people who were surprised were those who, for reasons I can never figure out, actually still believe that right-wing Christianists care about family values and morals and all that.

Nonsense. They use these "character issues" to beat up Democratic candidates, but they only use them in service of their real goal--power and money.

Does anyone really doubt that Robertson would endorse Satan himself if Old Scratch promised to keep the faith-based tax revenues flowing to the likes of Robertson?

C'mon guys. Give Smith some slack. He obviously has neither the time nor the military background to verify what he was told.

Midnight--I guess it wasn't clear.

My post about Smith "having neither the time nor the military experience to verify what he was told" was supposed to echo Joe Klein's excuse for getting his story wrong and refusing to own up to it--I believe what he said was "I have neither the time nor the legal experience to know who is right"--covered in the previous 2 posts on this blog.

Anyway, it's doubly ironic, because, of course, Smith IS a military man and should have the experience to know when there are 4500 soldiers in the area and when there aren't!