If we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever.

WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Samuel Alito, a federal appeals court judge chosen by President George W. Bush for the U.S. Supreme Court, has a staunchly conservative judicial philosophy that has earned him the nickname of "Scalito."

Nationwide, there are 246 abortions per 1,000 live births. In some conservative states, the rate is much lower. Only 154 per 1,000 in Arkansas, for example. But even 154 per 1,000 is a lot more than zero per 1,000. Some "red" states like Georgia (226) and North Carolina (230) barely differ from the national average. Meanwhile, "91.3% of all abortions occur in the woman's home state." If Roe is overturned and many conservative states implement abortion bans, that will be a big deal for the women who live in those states.

Socrates: [Draws his gun.] Aristotle, you're Plato's student, I respect you, but I will put fucking bullets through your heart if you don't take back what you said about me being violent now!

Sure, Tim Russert looks happy to see a couple of adoring policy geeks. Inside, however, Tim Russert is a boiling cauldron of pure spite and unadulterated rage. "Arrg! Kill them all!" exclaims Tim Russert, with the consummate skill of an experienced news professional. "With lasers!"

The same vicious cabal in Khartoum that was explicitly declared by former Secretary of State Colin Powell to be responsible for genocide in Darfur has now been allowed to secure the services of a former State Department employee to provide it with p.r. counsel. For a fee of $530,000 per year, the firm's role will essentially be to put a happy face on a genocidal regime.

Pat [Fitzgerald] has never given up his day job throughout this appointment. That job is being the U.S. attorney in Chicago —– responsible for the enforcement of federal law in a 150-lawyer office in the 3d or 4th largest district in the country. Indictments in that office, since he took over in 2001, are up by something like 100 percent, and they have done impressive work in terrorism financing, organized crime, securities fraud and political corruption. Further, unlike most U.S. attorneys, who leave the work to the staff and just steer the ship, he has always handled some of the big cases himself.

He is thus actually far busier than normal prosecutors, and there is no reason to fear that — like Starr, Walsh or Barrett — his only mission in life is to be the full-time, personal prosecutor for a few beleaguered public servants. (This investigation, in fact, has cost the public a bare fraction of what those other magillas cost.)

Dear Susie:
I’m a teen girl living in Uganda. I really love listening to music! I enjoy Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys and a very long list of gospel artists. I love the talent and passion that Whitney and Alicia use in their music. Any Christian artists you recommend that provide the same sound?

Ynang Silas
Uganda, Africa

Dear Ynang:
Check out Nicole C. Mullen, Charity Von or Rachel Lampa. By the way, I’ve been to your country and loved it!

Today I walked through the Capitol South metro station on my way up to the Hill. Metro stations are full of large advertisements. This fall, the defense bills have been wending their way through committees. Hence fighter planes, guns,submarines and lots of gadet laden soldiers float along the walls of most DC metro stations like an X-box dream menu. Capitol South had a nautical theme.

I learned that the Coast Guard's Deepwater program is made in 41 states. That the shiny ship I was looking at was "the future of littoral combat" (Fire that ad agency!) and that the DDX destroyer was going to guarantee my freedom...

The final bit of unseriousness came when I picked up the Hill newspaper and read that a new Senate group the "Fiscal Watch Team" had joined House Conservatives on the Republican Study Committee in proposing offsets in the federal budget to mitigate the costs of Katrina. The Fiscal Watch Team proposes 5% across the board cuts to domestic spending. Defense and Homeland Security are off the table. Defense industry advertisers are probably very grateful for this decision as they can now spend their earnings on flu shots, which they will need, as American hospitals are in the cross hairs of conservative budgeteers just as avian flu marches closer to the Atlantic ocean. I thought the House's "operation offset would be more fair because it included a section on defense. But the only cost savings on defense ideas they have are a garage sale for old boats and some sort of privatization scheme for veterans health.

This is not a government that is serious about national security.

"[They say] that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - Stepping up a confrontation with the Senate over the handling of detainees, the White House is insisting that the Central Intelligence Agency be exempted from a proposed ban on abusive treatment of suspected Qaeda militants and other terrorists...Vice President Dick Cheney and the C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, urged Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who wrote the amendment, to support an exemption for the agency, arguing that the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism.

DEBORAH SOLOMON, New York Times: Well, the U.S. government has to get money from somewhere. As a two-term former Republican senator from Florida, where do you suggest we get money from?

Connie Mack: What money?

NYT: The money to run this country.

Mack: We'll borrow it.

NYT: I never understand where all this money comes from.

Mack: When the president says we need another $200 billion for Katrina repairs, does he just go and borrow it from the Saudis?

In a sense, we do. Maybe the Chinese.

NYT: Is that fair to our children? If we keep borrowing at this level, won't the Arabs or the Chinese eventually own this country?

Mack: I am not worried about that. We are a huge country producing enormous assets day in and day out. We have great strength, and we have always adjusted to difficulties that faced us, and we will continue to do so.

NYT: Wasn't your grandfather, who was also named Connie Mack, one of the founders of Major League Baseball?

Mack: My grandfather was instrumental in the creation of the American League. My dad was with the baseball team as well. It was the Philadelphia Athletics.

NYT: Did you ever play professionally yourself?

I was big once, thinks the Apple III to itself. The Apple III is old and lonely. It's grandchildren never come to visit. They're young and iPods and having a good time being engraved by U2 or Madonna. Poor Apple III.

My children are still very small, but it has been made abundantly clear to me by friends and acquaintances that I had better get in the market for an SUV or a minivan, because I am soon enough going to be shuttling the children and their friends to a bewildering series of soccer games, soccer parties, soccer tournaments... Mothering, which used to be a rather private affair (requiring, principally, a playpen, a back yard, a television set, and a coffeepot), has now adopted a very public dimension. Why, of course Sarah So-and-So is a good mother: little Andrew is at Gymboree, Music Rhapsody, Bright Child, and Fit for Kids every week! All of domestic life now turns on the entertainment and happiness not of the adults but of the children. At vacation time my husband and I don't drag our little boys through the Louvre, as I was dragged at a tender age (because my parents wanted to see it, and it would never have occurred to them to consult their children about where to go on holiday).

For a parent to participate in some amusement they don't really care for because the kids like it is totally normal. To demand that the kids put up with something the adults want to do is unthinkable. People inconvenience themselves by moving further and further toward the fringes of urban areas in order to be able to afford houses and yards that are, by world standards, simply enormous and huge swathes of these massive spaces are given over to the children. Sentiments like "children are to be seen and not heard" couldn't be be more dead. In essence, couples are expected to more-or-less give up on their lives for a couple of decades in order to raise their kids. To do anything less -- to inconvenience or annoy your children or deprive them of something they might want to do or to have for the sake of something you want -- would be abhorrent and neglectful.

Folks, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The flavor of the day is payola. It's a strong blend of hypocrisy, greed, and opportunism, fed by the fawning naivete of people who have no idea they're being taken to the cleaners.

Gun-Wielding Clowns Rob Doughnut Shop

The only way I'll get near a motorcycle is if I can ride sidecar with Dykes on Bikes...is what I used to say before I saw this baby.

Yamaha's concept model of a high-performance hybrid motorcycle, the 'Gen-Ryu.' (Photo: AFP/Yoshikazu Tsuno) 600cc engine and electric motor hybrid system which can achieve over 1,000cc class machine performance. I'm not really sure what those numbers mean, but I do know that I want a space-bike, and I want one now.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Republican Rep. Tom DeLay's fate could hinge on a Stetson-wearing defense attorney who not only represented Waco cult leader David Koresh and helped a cross-dressing millionaire beat a murder rap, but is also a Democrat.

A picture of Saddam Hussein as a child. Next time you're tempted to be one of those people who thinks little kids are "just so cute," remember that they grow up to be Saddam Hussein. (AP Photo/File)

On Yahoo! Search, OxBlog is one of the top ten websites that come up if you enter 'salma hayek sucking'. What really baffles me, though, is why anyone would actually click on the link to our website when the other nine results seem to promise so much more of what one is presumably looking for.

On a related note, OxBlog is the first (yup, first) website that comes up if you Yahoo! Search 'is harry potter circumcise'. I had hoped that our readers would have better grammar.

ROME -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe yesterday railed against President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling them "international terrorists" bent on world domination like Adolf Hitler.

Sex worker Camille Cabral, representing French prostitutes, poses next to a European Union flag after a press conference organised by the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE), at the European Parliament in Brussels, October 17, 2005. The ICRSE wants to end the criminalization of the sex industry and give prostitutes the same social rights as other workers. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

During her visit to London last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said initial information from the field indicated the constitution would be backed. Hussein Hindawi, an official at the [IECI], said he was "surprised" by the statement. "As far as I know, she does not work at the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq," Mr Hindawi added.

The bulk of any [Contract With America-style] proposal will deal with domestic policy, but here are nine ideas to get the ball rolling on what the foreign policy planks of such a contract could be...

Moved 75 miles because I just can't afford the commute from the real country to work anymore. When you can buy a house for what it costs you to commute you probably ought to. So I did. Picking up 2 1/2 hours of time each day not spent driving is a bonus as well.

Maybe the rising price of gasoline will be what reverses the flight from the city. It has in my case.

Increasingly, officials say, Syria is to the Iraq war what Cambodia was in the Vietnam War: a sanctuary for fighters, money and supplies to flow over the border and, ultimately, a place for a shadow struggle.

New Chief Justice John Roberts ... said a law clerk might write him a memo claiming that another justice has a "wacky" approach to the law. Roberts wondered if he could fire the clerk, without being sued on free speech grounds.

Scalia said that the example was not a good one.

"Nobody's wacko here," he said.

It does seem less necessary to export condemnation of eating dogs than, say, female genital mutilation.

I love all these conservatives running around telling other conservatives something along the lines of, 'Trust Bush...she's just as insane as we are!' Nothing like fundamentalists arguing about who is more fundamental...Maybe you should ask them if they identify themselves as Dobson conservatives, Bush conservatives, or just insane people?

You know when people read blogs? They read blogs between 9 am and 5 pm, Monday through Friday. A very civilized schedule. You know why? Because people who read blogs work in offices with computers at their desks, they're bored, would rather be doing literally anything else, and that other thing is reading blogs.

The deal the negotiators reached yesterday night agrees on a mechanism to consider amending the constitution after it is approved in Saturday’s nationwide vote.

The next parliament, to be formed in December, will set up a commission to consider amendments, which would later have to be approved by parliament and submitted to another referendum. That would give Sunnis the ability to try later to introduce...

Bush To Appoint Someone To Be In Charge Of Country

October 12, 2005

WASHINGTON, DC—In response to increasing criticism of his handling of the war in Iraq and the disaster in the Gulf Coast, as well as other issues, such as Social Security reform, the national deficit, and rising gas prices, President Bush is expected to appoint someone to run the U.S. as soon as Friday.

The Cabinet-level position, to be known as Secretary of the Nation, was established by an executive order Sept. 2, but has remained unfilled in the intervening weeks.

Among the new secretary's duties are preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States, commanding the U.S. armed forces, appointing judges and ambassadors, and vetoing congressional legislation. The secretary will also be tasked with overseeing all foreign and domestic affairs, including those relating to the economy, natural disasters, national infrastructure, homeland security, poverty, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The secretary will report directly to the president.

After a while, you get sick of the DeLays of the right and the Deans of the left. After a while, you tire of the current Republicans, who lack a coherent governing philosophy, and the current Democrats, who are completely bereft of ideas. After a while you begin to wonder: Did I really get engaged in politics so I could spend months arguing about the confirmation of Harriet Miers, the John Major of American jurisprudence?

And when you begin thinking this way, you find yourself emotionally disengaging from the exhausted clans that dominate the present. You find yourself going back to basics and considering the fundamental questions: What visions originally excited me about politics and government? If it were completely up to me, where would I plant my flag?

Here's where I would plant mine.

I believe in the lost tradition of American politics, the tradition of Hamilton, Lincoln and the Bull Moose. In other words, I believe that social mobility is the core of the American experience. I believe that society should be structured so that as many boys and girls as possible can work, and rise the way young Hamilton and Lincoln did...

I know, having learned it from Lincoln and Roosevelt, that individual initiative should always be tied to national union. I know we need a national service program to bind our segmented youth through citizenship. I know we need to protect the natural heritage that defines us. I know America has to persevere in its exceptional mission to promote freedom, and the effort to promote democracy in the Arab world is one of the most difficult and noble endeavors any great power has undertaken.

When I cut myself loose from the push and shove of today's weary political titans, and go back to basics, I find myself strangely invigorated.

It's time for an insurrection.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank quoted me as saying Harriet Miers fits the dictionary definition of "crony," as if it was a stinging rebuke of the White House. In reality, it was merely a factual statement.

In 2002, Bush backed liberal Richard Riordan in the Republican gubernatorial primary in California against conservative Bill Simon. This triggered a series of events that culminated in Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming the governor of California. [In much the same way that Fox torpedoing Firefly led to Joss Whedon getting his own movie.] ...

If [Rep. Katherine] Harris were as pathetic as the typical Republican supported by Bush, she would have defied the law during the 2000 election crisis and proclaimed Gore the winner just to get the media to love her. Gore would be president now, and Harris would have her own show on MSNBC. I'd be storing away all my summer burkas and, accompanied by a male relative, taking my winter burkas to the dry cleaners to be freshened up...

Karl Rove is Bob Shrum with a good cause.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito said today she will not challenge Sen. Robert Byrd next year for a U.S. Senate seat, but instead will try to keep her high-profile position in the House of Representatives

After the Sunni minority says no the constitution--and especially after they say no and it passes anyway--what do you suppose the likelihood is that they'll remain in the political process?

The conventional wisdom is that a nominee's narrative is largely set within the first 48 hours or so. With this in mind, by sometime Wednesday, the mainstream media will probably be reporting a) "Harriet Miers, who's nomination has been well received on the Hill," or b) "Harriet Miers, who's limited record has made her nomination more controversial than John Roberts'."

At this point, after about six hours, the latter is slowly taking root —— and Dems haven't had to lift a finger...

Prior to this year, in the course of your legal career have you ever been involved in any Supreme Court litigation? Have you ever been consulted about such litigation? Has it ever occurred to anyone to consult you about it?

at first blush, what bothers me more is the political calculation here. Bush could very much use a brisk confirmation battle right now. His base is forgetting why he should be supported. Confirmation battles over big ideas are clarifying in ways that are good for the public and good for a president whose principles are getting blurry. The Miers pick comes along at precisely the wrong moment. Bush is saying "trust me" at exactly the time when conservatives want to be reassured they can trust him. The last thing he needs right now is to dip into his house credit one more time.

Bush has a history of running against the wind of his strongest critics, which is one of the things I love about the guy. For example, people said Bush was too unilateral and hostile to the international community, so he appointed John Bolton. But, either by accident or design, this time around he seems bent on countering a different kind of criticism. He's been getting beaten -- somewhat unfairly -- for his alleged cronyism of late. This appointment seems like the Bolton approach; "Oh yeah, you think I'm into cronyism? Well here's my former personal lawyer from Texas!"