Yesterday I finally scored an interview -- via phone, direct from the Ukraine -- with former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, who's running for mayor of Kiev. The vote is coming up on May 25, and Klitschko is attempting to knock out (well, theoretically -- but he does have a higher knockout percentage than any other heavyweight champ!) incumbent Leonid Chernovetsky.

So stay tuned for my column on this matchup, where Klitschko -- who holds a Ph.D., incidentally -- confesses that politics is much more difficult than boxing. He also uses his upbringing in a Soviet state to craft his vision of how the Ukraine really needs to embrace true democracy and knock out corruption.

(Klitschko, btw, lived in L.A. for a while -- all of his three kids were born at Cedars-Sinai.)

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, wait, Putin is still, for all intents and purposes, ruler supreme of Russia... Never mind!

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 7:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Israel nears her 60th birthday, this is major food for thought: Hamas airs a "documentary" showing that Jews supposedly plotted the Holocaust to weed out the weak and gain international sympathy. They release it just a couple of weeks before the day when the world remembered the victims of the Holocaust. The media largely ignores this outrage, because Hamas represents the "persecuted" Palestinians. I write about the lessons we need to learn from this -- with the insight of my pal Valerie Harper, who took her amazing Golda Meir character to the big screen recently -- in my column this week:

"Sadly, as we marked this year's Holocaust Remembrance Day, 'never again' seems further from reach than ever. Jews continue to be targeted, be it in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, or the repeated desecration of Jewish graves in Berlin. Holocaust denial has became accepted as legitimate thought in some circles and has become a foreign-policy talking point in the regimes of others.And when I, a gentile columnist, have written about the outrage of Holocaust denial, I've received far too many letters defending the deniers.

'Jews don't care about anybody but the Jews,' wrote one Canadian reader. '...Only a fool would trust a Jew to play fair with gentiles. ... They're laughing at you for falling for their lies. Don't be such a sap.'

Hamas is doing its best to stoke that disbelief in the true nature of the Holocaust, while fanning the flames of hatred for the Jewish people.

On April 18, Al-Aqsa TV - which brought Palestinian kiddies Farfour the martyr mouse and Assoud, the Bugs Bunny rip-off who vowed to 'eat' the Jews - aired an 'educational' program that accused Jews of perpetuating the Holocaust to weed out the weak among their ranks and simultaneously gain international sympathy.

This, of course, walks a fine line with Hamas' contention that the Holocaust never happened..."

Read the whole thing!

And if you want to be even more depressed, read the reader comments, which include this gem from a woman in Redondo Beach:

"Holocaust 'denial' is a misnomer. Nobody denies the Holocaust. Some people have noticed irregularities with some aspects of the official holocaust story and have raised questions. For example, why haven't the mass graves at the death camps been opened up to estimate the number of victims and see what we can find out about who they are or how they died? Why hasn't anybody demanded information about a relative they believe was murdered in one of the death camps? How exactly did the gas chambers work and how did they dispose of all the bodies?

All reasonable questions but instead of answers, you get called a bigot and anti-semite for asking them. For that reason, people will continue questioning the holocaust. It's not bigotry that leads people to holocaust revision, it's simply curiosity."

To which one reader from New York responded:

"Christina, I could not agree with you more. It's not bigotry to find the truth. The real bigots here are the stiff-neck mutated counterfeit jews that reasons with their own vile vehement that spews forth without intelligences, along with their brain dead following.."

Feeling truly ill yet? There was a positive comment over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to lift one's spirits (the last line cracked me up, anyway):

"I'm surprised the PI let Bridget Johnson's opinion on here.

The popular opinion on the far left is that the Jewish people and Israel are the root cause of all violence, poverty and hate in the Arab world. Without Jews, none of it would exist.

I'm sure they would have felt sorry for them as they were being cooked early in the late 30s, had they been around to see it, but now that they have recovered, prospered and are white and wealthy, they are a target.

Hamas could fry babies, and they do in a sense, and they would be the noble ones to the far left, because they aren't wealthy.

Keep the faith Bridget and if your letters smell of lattes and incense, save yourself some grief and throw them away."

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And momentarily, the smell of sulphur left by Hugo was washed away...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a line in "Pulp Fiction" where Samuel L. Jackson's character, Jules, has a "moment of clarity" after several short-range bullets miss him: He decides to quit the hitman career, finally start living the Ezekiel passage he quoted to victims about the path of righteousness being beset on all sides by evil men, and even though totally unsure of his future he tells Vincent Vega (John Travolta) "I can't go back to sleep."

After this week's protests against the Olympic torch in San Francisco, one can't help but think -- and hope -- that many spectators now have that feeling about the myriad grievances brought against China: Tibet, the PRC's support for Sudan and Burma, press freedom (or lack of it, as the situation is), even the crackdowns on China's Uighur community (which showed up waving Eastern Turkistan flags). Media reports tend to leap to the loony protesters -- like the trio of nude guys I interviewed (and photographed, providing a scary surprise for my mother in her e-mail) -- but a strong message was sent by a passionate mass of protesters who generally heeded the call for nonviolence yet blocked the path for the torch to enter the closing ceremonies.

I was there for it. Protest events actually began Tuesday, with a Tibet-centric rally at U.N. Plaza, marching to San Francisco City Hall and the Chinese consulate after that. Many in the crowd were ethnic Tibetans, waving Tibet and American flags, but many were supporters from other walks of life. One speaker -- described as the only Tibetan in Appalachia -- eloquently compared this fight against communism to Eastern Europe's efforts, and hoped that Rangzen ("independence") would reach the same one-word movement recognition as Solidarność in 1980s Poland. One organizer handed me a sobering list -- names, ages, gender, town of those Tibetans thus far confirmed killed by the Chinese government since March 14. The elected North American representative for the Tibetan government in exile had sobering news: Some of those monks who were arrested and tortured for defying protest bans have committed suicide upon their release from Chinese custody. As it is, monasteries are under siege without access to food or water.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, of course, cowered inside City Hall and didn't come out when the protesters massed on the steps and spilled across the street. Marching up Van Ness Avenue (and yes, I did get new running shoes for the week) toward the consulate, cars driving the opposite way stopped in lanes to take pictures of the monks, the activists, and the plain ol' concerned citizens; drivers honked and flashed peace signs.

On Wednesday I got to the Embarcadero long before the torch relay was to start, sipping the best ever clam chowder on the patio of the Waterfront Restaurant as helicopters buzzed overhead and a plane flew a "Free Burma" banner. As Newsom decided to play hide-and-seek with the torch at the last minute, protesters made the wise decision to gather near the closing ceremonies site rather than spread out among the supposed waterfront route. Before long, the police barricades were null and the Chinese nationalists who had lined up to watch the missing torch were treated to a parade of demonstrators. I was in the middle of the protesters, dashing over to watch the latest shouting match or flag wrestling with China supporters who had wandered into the protest crowd.

At about 2:30 p.m. -- the relay was supposed to start at 1 p.m. -- Tibetan organizers told protesters to go through the Embarcadero Center building to get around police barricades branching far from the stage setup. “Block all the entrances!” a protest leader shouted. “Do not let the torch enter the closing ceremony!”
Demonstrators streamed through the doors of the shopping center, chanting slogans as shopkeepers peered from windows.

Once close to the ceremony site, protesters pressed against another set of barricades that kept the public out of reserved seating. “Bring down the barriers!” demonstrators shouted as police lined up and a band played covers of tunes such as David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure.” A couple of protesters asked me -- I was smushed in, close to the front of the pack -- if I would push in on the barrier: "You have a press pass, so you won't get in trouble!" they theorized. Uh-huh.

I find it interesting that so many stories are painting the day as a victory for Newsom when it was the strong protest efforts that made the torch run and hide.

This, I think, is one of the saddest stories of relay day:

"At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.

'The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke,' said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. 'They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street.'"

I'm so glad that, here in America, Chinese authorities are allowed to decide what's acceptable speech, and then our law enforcement officers go along with it, acting like her peaceful display of a Tibetan flag is a crime. Shame on the city of San Francisco!!

But major, major props to the people of San Francisco, who are unlikely to continue to be silent about the policies of communist China. Once you learn the truth, it's hard to go back to sleep. (Unless, of course, you're President Bush, who unfortunately refuses to ditch the opening ceremonies in Beijing.)

Here's the coverage roundup thus far from my trip:

MY VIDEO:

April 8 Tibet protests

April 9 torch relay protests

MY STORIES:

Round One of Anti-China Protests in San Francisco

San Francisco alters Olympic torch route to avoid protests

Olympic Protesters Run Torch Out of Town

And coming very soon, my Daily News column on an interesting angle of the whole torch protest affair...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Easter Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI baptized Magdi Allam, an Italian newspaper editor and a former Muslim, into the Christian faith. And ever since, various Muslim, secular, and even Christians have denounced this high-profile conversion as reckless and needlessly provocative. Allam, they argue, should have received the sacraments quietly, without all the attention and papal fanfare that could harm interfaith dialog and offend Muslim sensibilities.

But in terms of shock value and provocation, Allam’s conversion has nothing on Bl. Anthony Neyrot’s.

Neyrot, who celebrates his feast day today, was a Dominican brother living in Sicily in the Fifteenth Century. While sailing to Naples, Moorish pirates captured his ship, then sold him into slavery in Tunis. There, Neyrot would win back his earthly freedom by rejecting Christianity in favor of Islam. He was adopted into the Tunisian king’s family and took a wife, leaving his vocation, his order, and his faith behind.

It's quite possible Anthony would have died an apostate were it not for the intervention of his former Dominican prior, who had only recently passed away — St. Antoninus. Antoninus appeared to Anthony in a dream, the message of which was so profound that it spurred Anthony’s repentance. Neyrot sought out a priest, confessed his sins, sent his wife back to her family, and was readmitted to his order.

But his reversion didn’t end there. Anthony wanted his return to Christ to be as public as possible. On Palm Sunday of 1460, Anthony appeared at a procession before the Tunisian king, wearing his white Dominican habit for all to see. He publicly denounced his conversion to Islam and proclaimed his restored devotion to Christ.

Now that's a provocation.

Continue reading "A Patron for Magdi Allam and Benedict XVI" »

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the mayor of a city that prides itself on its supposed commitment to human rights and its love of free speech, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's attempt to spare the Butchers of Beijing a little embarrassment is downright pathetic.

Thousands of Americans, including FF's own Bridget Johnson, were in San Fran today to protest the passing of the Olympic torch, which was en route to Beijing for the summer games. Internationally, these protests have been the cause of much well-deserved shame and humiliation for China's thugocracy, which had imagined the Olympics would be the regime's global coming-out party.

But the protest was spoiled, thanks to Mayor Newsom, who had city officials lie about the route the torch would take, so that it could follow another, protest-free path.

Which is, to be sure, exactly what the tyrants in China wanted -- a controversy-free photo-op to inflict on their own people and show to the world. Maybe that's why, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, many of the "pro-torch demonstrators" who were there today "carried red Chinese flags and said they were bused in by the Chinese consulate and other pro-China groups."

And now no less than the mayor has given Beijing a hand. Nice job, Gav.

One wonders if Newsom would have extended such courtesies to any other potential SF protests. Do you think if, oh, the pope or the president were passing through down, the mayor would have gladly lied to spare them some bad publicity?

No, I'm not calling Newsom a Communist. But a good many Americans -- politicians in both parties, and most of the corporate world -- have turned a blind eye to the despotic regime's horrendous practices because, quite frankly, there's too much money to be made there. (Thus the International Olympic Committee's bizarre choice of Beijing in the first place.) Companies like Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft, which refuse to block even the most horrific porn in the name of "free speech" here, gladly squelch any sort of political dissidence in Red China. Newsom, who hopes to be governor some day, knows better than anyone what interests he can -- and can't -- afford to offend if he wants to cultivate big-ticket campaign contributors.

But by sparing Beijing some shame, Newsom has earned plenty for himself. Check out this quote from SF Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin:

"Gavin Newsom runs San Francisco the way the premier of China runs his country - secrecy, lies, misinformation, lack of transparency and manipulating the populace. He misled supporters and opponents of the run. People brought their families and their children, and (mayoral officials) hatched a cynical plan to please the Bush State Department and the Chinese government because of the incredible influence of money.

"He did it so China can report they had a great torch run. It's the worst kind of government - government by deceit and misinformation."

Ah, maybe that's why Gavin is being a useful idiot for the Butchers of Beijing -- he admires their governing style.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

American politicians believe that democracy can only be achieved through free elections and a desire for self-determination. I have a different take. I say give them access to McDonalds, Wal-Mart and cell phones and you don't even need their hearts and minds -- they will fight for their right to buy more crap they don't need.

Last week, word that cell phones were going to be allowed in Cuba seemed a huge step toward freeing the people through the acquisition of stuff, until one realized that even the cheapest cell phone payment plan is beyond the means of most people. Still I image the Cuban relatives outside of Cuba would have no problem paying the cell bills to keep in contact with loved ones still on the island.

But I think I may have found the real catalyst for change in a post-Fidel Cuba: appliances.

Perusing through the Cayman Net News,a strange Caribbean newspaper in which the rules of punctuation seemed to be quite relaxed, I stumbled on a seemingly innocuous AFP story about Cubans buying (or at least, eyeing) rice cookers. (The Caymans are Cuba-adjacent,). Because of the strangeness of this paper's web site, I can't link to the story. But here's the line that I think says it all:

Cubans lined up outside stores Tuesday to gawk at, and enjoy their new right to buy, appliances such as pressure cookers, DVDs and electric bikes. Their sale had been banned by the government since 2003 amid severe power shortages.

Can western-style democracy be far behind?

Posted by Mariel Garza at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We already know that Bush and Gordon Brown have no cojones when it comes to standing up for China and boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- Forbes' most powerful woman in the world and highly worthy of the title -- has become the first leader to put her foot down and do the right thing:

"As pressure built for concerted western protests to China over the crackdown in Tibet, EU leaders prepared to discuss the crisis for the first time today, amid a rift over whether to boycott the Olympics.

The disclosure that Germany is to stay away from the games' opening ceremonies in August could encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to join in a gesture of defiance and complicate Gordon Brown's determination to attend the Olympics.

Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, became the first EU head of government to announce a boycott on Thursday and he was promptly joined by President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, who had previously promised to travel to Beijing.

'The presence of politicians at the inauguration of the Olympics seems inappropriate,' Tusk said. 'I do not intend to take part.'

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister, confirmed that Merkel was staying away. He added that neither he nor Wolfgang Schäuble, the interior minister responsible for sport, would attend the opening ceremony.

Hans-Gert Pöttering, the politician from Merkel's Christian Democratic party who chairs the European parliament, encouraged talk of an Olympic boycott this week and invited the Dalai Lama to address the chamber in Strasbourg, while another senior German Christian Democrat, Ruprecht Polenz, said a boycott should remain on the table."

This is awesome news!! And I'm willing to bet that Sarko will take the boycott route.

My column last week on how we shouldn't play China's games anymore got a lot of interesting reaction, by the way, including a death threat from the mainland. No worries -- I'll just sic these creepy "fuwas" on him:

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 1:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Moammar Gadhafi, who apparently has taken pleather to new, exciting places, gets all street with the amazingly birdlike Syrian President Bashar Assad...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 1:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

... comes a newly revealed devotion to Jesus Christ.

God bless Mikhail Gorbachev, shown here paying a visit to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi:

"It was through St Francis that I arrived at the Church, so it was important that I came to visit his tomb," said Mr Gorbachev.

"I feel very emotional to be here at such an important place not only for the Catholic faith, but for all humanity."

I'd say that Lenin must be rolling in his grave, but I suspect that the USSR's first leader has come to know the reality of God even more profoundly than has its last ...

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Plenty of countries claim up and down that they don’t hold political prisoners, and those eager to do business with that country are usually too eager to buy their story. But a recently leaked copy of a secret politburo document should leave everyone with little doubt that not only does Vietnam persecute political prisoners; they’re worried about learning to persecute more efficiently so they’ll catch less flack from the international community.

I got a hold of that memo, which was so tightly controlled that copies were numbered, sent out to the Communist Party hierarchy, then recalled and the numbers ticked off to make sure all were returned. Read all about it in my column today:

“When pressed last year on human rights during his historic visit to D.C., Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet passed off violations as a ‘different understanding’ that needed to be taken in context of ‘historical backgrounds and conditions.’Pro-democracy Vietnamese, however, understand well the conditions in place to systematically keep their voices silent. Now an apparent memo from the top tells the story.

The top-secret, just-leaked Vietnamese government document urges Communist Party officials to become more conscientious in their quest to ‘limit the spread of false ideas in the population about democracy, human rights, religious freedom, which impacts negatively on the Party and the State foreign policy,’ and work ‘to institute effort to neutralize these organizations and individuals who conspire to maneuver against the country and socialism.’

The document titled ‘NOTICE: Conclusion of the Political Party, concerning raising the bar of quality and effectiveness in the execution of the political trials in the face of new development’ and dated Sept. 12, 2007, was distributed to provincial authorities, party officials and leading technocrats, as noted in the memo.

Signed off and stamped by Standing Secretariat Member Truong Tan Sang, the Politburo sent out numbered copies on a recall basis. Yet a copy of the document was leaked by a Communist Party member to the People’s Democratic Party of Vietnam, which advocates a multi-party system and is thus banned by the Vietnamese regime.Reading the document - the English translation provided by the PDP - is a window into a regime that systematically conspires to silence dissidents and fears international scrutiny could derail its attempts at global acceptance.

‘The quality and effectiveness of the execution of the political cases have not met the requirements to enable the struggle to prevent and deal with these crimes,’ the memo reads, complaining that ‘the charges and rulings in a number of cases have not been appropriate’ and trials have been ‘allowing the accused excessive responses.’

‘…To fight and defeat the attack plot of the enemy forces is our first line of defense, urgent and immediate.’…”

Over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a reader says this in response to the column running there:

"If we had followed thru in Vietnam 30 years ago this would not be happening..."

Looking forward to seeing how those readers respond to that...

(The photo, btw, is Father Nguyen Van Ly, who said "Down with communism!" at his sham trial, and in response the politburo puppets clapped a hand over his mouth.)

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My favorite contestant is the old guy in this audition tape from Mazar-e-Sharif:

It's like "American Idol," but scours for contestants in Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, etc. There's even an Afghan Ryan Seacrest (who's actually a medical student) and a woman on the judging panel a la Paula Abdul. It's in its third season, and this year a woman from Kandahar placed third, the highest ever for a woman, drawing lots of fans and pissing off conservative clerics. And I can't help but notice that, sans beards, there are some hot guys in Afghanistan...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 6:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Might he say a word or two about the pleased comments about his potential presidency that were found on a laptop of the Colombian terror group FARC? You know, the nuggets buried at the bottom of the AP's story on the contents of the seized laptop:

"Writing two days before his death, (FARC commander Raul) Reyes tells his comrades that 'the gringos,' working through Ecuador's government, are interested 'in talking to us on various issues.'

'They say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama,' he writes, saying Obama rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program."

Surely a notorious killer, kidnapper, and drug trafficker isn't an ideal endorsement. Two days after Reyes' death, before the laptop discovery was released, Obama released a short, general statement against the threats of war in South America, saying diplomacy through "international actors" (Danny Glover?? Sean Penn??) should be used to defuse the situation. Obama's previously signaled his opposition to free trade with Colombia, but what about the U.S. aid agreement by which President Alvaro Uribe has been able to battle the traffickers and the FARC (which still holds three American hostages), thus making the cities there livable again? I'd love to hear Obama's opinions in light of the Reyes mail...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 1:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If your enemy drops a bomb on you or shoots your child, you will be understandably aggrieved, angry and want revenge. This is only human.

When Israel suffers a shooting, as yesterday, with 9 rabbinic students slaughtered, I understand the rage and calls for action. When Palestinian families lose their children and their homes, I understand that they too cry out for what seems like justice to them.

Here’s what I do not understand. Truly, I do not understand dancing and celebrating the deaths of civilian members of the group you oppose. Not being a pacifist, I accept that war and violence are sometimes necessities. This is always tragic and never holy. There are no holy wars. That is an oxymoron. There should be no joy in the destruction even of an enemy.

The Talmud teaches that when the Red Sea closed up on the Egyptians who were pursuing the escaping Hebrews, the angels began to rejoice. G-d rebuked the angels saying that they dare not take pleasure in the deaths of the Egyptians, by saying that “they too are my children.”

Yes, when death and destruction rain down on you, your family or people you won’t much care about mood or motive. You will have pain, loss and rage. But there is something fundamentally different between fighting and killing with enthusiasm and fighting with heart aching and eyes filled with tears.

The Palestinians danced today; they danced at 9-11, they danced while dead Israeli soldiers were dragged through the streets and displayed like animals. I have never seen Israelis dance at Palestinian suffering and death. Why?

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

How is it that we are debating NAFTA and the shipping of jobs overseas while at the same time letting Airbus win a $41 billion contract for tanker planes for our Air Force? This contract is likely grow to over $100 billion Euros over the next decade. This represents money that could be spent here, and workers who could be employed here. The fig leaf of Northrop having offices in the states and some assembly taking place here is just that—a fig leaf.

Instead of worrying about tech support in India and people sewing shirts in South Asia for pennies and hour—jobs not really injuring our citizens—why are we not demanding the return of aerospace industry to our shores? This is not simply about jobs, though this is certainly an important part, but about our ability to engage the world.

We know that we have problems when the oil spigot dries up. What about when the world disapproves of some American foreign policy initiative? Could our military be held hostage to French foreign policy objectives or by a vote of the European Union? If we outsource our military equipment, the answer becomes Yes.

Should we need spare parts, we can imagine ourselves, like Cuba, isolated and starved of the ability to keep our planes in the air. Yes, this is economic but it is also a matter of national security.

As we enter a recession with growing deficits and unemployment, as the world becomes less and less influenced by our wants and needs, this contract is madness itself—economically, for jobs, for the deficit, the balance of trade and for our security and freedom of movement in the world.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Let me mince no words: There is no world leader thirsting for war with anyone as badly as Hugo Chavez.

Here's the deal: Leftist Ecuadoran leader Rafael Correa didn't seem as upset the day before yesterday about Colombia reaching inside Ecuadoran territory to strike at a camp of FARC leaders, making their most important kill yet in taking out commander and spokesman Raul Reyes, one of seven members of the guerrilla group's hierarchy.

But in the past several weeks, Chavez, a longtime supporter of FARC, has been doing the "hostage negotiation" dance with FARC in an effort to publicly usurp the power and influence of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (who, it has to be said, has really cleaned up the country and is Satan to Hugo because he has a good relationship with the U.S.). The slaying of Reyes puts Uribe firmly back in control and probably wounds the FARC -- a longtime thorn in the side of Colombian stability -- to the point of no return.

Chavez's message now: He's has Russian arms and he wants to use 'em. He licks his lips at the thought of drawing the U.S. into a South American conflict, and is trying to stoke the fires by saying that the U.S. jointly killed Reyes. He's gotten lapdog Correa as riled up as he needs to be.

More from the AP:

"...Chavez on Sunday promised Venezuela would respond militarily if Colombia violates its border, where he ordered tanks as well as thousands of troops. He also ordered closed Venezuela's embassy in Bogota.

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, called for the troop deployment while also withdrawing his government's ambassador from Bogota and expelling Colombia's top diplomat.

'Mr. Defense Minister, move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia for me, immediately — tank battalions. Deploy the air force,' Chavez said during his weekly TV and radio program. 'We don't want war, but we aren't going to permit the U.S. empire, which is the master (of Colombia) ... to come divide us.'

Correa said Colombia deliberately carried out the strike beyond its borders. He said the rebels were 'bombed and massacred as they slept, using precision technology.'"

Precision technology? What's wrong with that? It meant that innocents weren't killed. Oh, that's right... you refuse to believe that the FARC are terrorists...

"'This could be the start of a war in South America,' Chavez said. He warned Uribe: 'If it occurs to you to do this in Venezuela, President Uribe, I'll send some Sukhois' — Russian warplanes recently bought by Venezuela."

The thing about Chavez is that Colombia may not even have to step one inch inside Venezuela's border for him to find "cause" to start a war. And never mind that he took his helicopters inside Colombia for his FARC kaffeeklatsch hostage retrieval.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 2:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Free saxophone for Russian voters in Moscow today!

Perhaps Bill can do this for Hillary in Ohio on Tuesday?

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 2:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, so they don't have temblors very often. And they have a bunch of stuff made of brick. And "retrofit" likely isn't the first thing on their minds. But there was no serious damage reported and one injury from the U.K. quake that was reportedly felt for 300 miles.

But The Sun tabloid is all over the hot story:

"Stunned Mark Young said he looked out of his window and saw an EIGHT FOOT crack in his neighbour’s garden at LEICESTER.

He said: 'There was a big crack through the ground and there was smoke and flames coming out. It was spitting things out.

'It is eight foot long and two foot wide.'

John Burton feared his house, in WAKEFIELD, West Yorkshire, was going to fall down as he watched television.

He said: 'It shook the whole house.'

Metal worker Simon Smith, 38, from CHATTERIS, Cambs, said: 'It felt like a juggernaut was going down my road.

'I turned to my wife Heather and shouted, "S***, it’s an earthquake."'"

Wimps.

And yes, that's the worst damage picture to be found.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 3:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

They look so happy to be going off to fight the Marxist weenie terrorist PKK, huh? (And pretty er, cute, but that's beside the point.) That is, until they see what that cross-border incursion entails...

Damn! I guess that's why you don't invade Kurdistan in the winter. They look like a party out hunting the Yeti. Heck, with the snow camo they look like the Yeti. That's some determined Turks...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 2:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The disputed island has elected a proud Marxist as its next president, making Communist Party leader Demetris Christofias the only (confessed) communist leader in the EU. The Communist party on Cyprus, the AKEL, features a bust of Lenin in its HQ, and Christofias loves him some classic Che T-shirts. It would probably be difficult enough to tell his rabid supporters that in their Che worship they're bowing to a murderer, but even check out the sleeve on the guy pictured: it says "CCCP." What heroes they have!! Hand over your computer and get in line for toilet paper now!!

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 2:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Saturday I went to a luncheon at the Pakistani consul general's house in Beverly Hills held in honor of the visiting Mirwaiz Omar Farooq. The mirwaiz (meer-wise) is the hereditary spiritual leader of the Kashmir Valley's 5.3 million or so Muslims; he took the post in 1990 at age 17, after his father was assassinated. In a snappy suit jacket, no tie, closely trimmed beard and no hat, he was barely recognizable at the backyard buffet. (Translation: He looked very L.A.!) He was also very eloquent, speaking at length about the need for the region to have a voice in his nonviolent quest for a solution to the Kashmir problem. Read what the mirwaiz said here at the Daily News, or at NYT clients such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

A sample:

"'Whatever is happening in Pakistan has a direct reflection on Kashmir and we believe that this peace process needs to be strengthened,' he replied. '...So it's very important that we have a government in Pakistan who is committed to the peace process with India, but at the same time who are ready to think out of the box, not just concentrate on whatever the policy has been in the past. They need to be more flexible in their approach.'

The mirwaiz said he believes the peace process 'will gain some momentum once there's a stable government in Pakistan.'

...'People don't want violence, they want peace,' Farooq stressed. 'But peace with honor, peace with dignity. We don't want peace at the graveyard. And you cannot have peace in a vacuum.'"

The mirwaiz is constantly under threat from extremists for advocating dialogue; when his All Parties Hurriyat Conference began talks with India in 2006, Farooq's uncle was killed and Farooq's house was attacked. At this sunny Bev Hills event, I confess I kept thinking how pragmatic men like him need to stick around in this world, and it's worth saying a novena for the guy's safety.

And not to nosedive into trivial talk, but the Pakistani food was awesome at the lunch -- particularly flour patties with yogurt sauce, spinach and feta with naan (soft flatbread), korma, chicken tikka, and a shredded beef that was super-spicy. Today I found a Pakistani restaurant, Shahnawaz Halal Restaurant, and the shredded beef was included on the tandoori mix plate (but it was mintier than the buffet variety), plus the garlic naan was divine. Now where are the damn Rolaids??

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A great idea, and one that will put many democracies on the hot seat (where as well they should be): If you don't have the guts to take a stand for human rights and boycott the Summer Games, do you at least have the balls to skip the party beforehand?

From Al-Jazeera:

"...Joel Voordewind, a member of the Christian Union that is a junior member of the ruling Dutch coalition government, said he wants governments around the world to support the boycott and lean on sponsors to use their financial clout with Beijing on the human rights issue.

'It is possible to take part in the games but skip the party before hand,' he said.

'Such a ceremony is only intended to glorify the host, China.'

Voordewind also suggested setting up a venue in Beijing during the games where visitors can discuss human rights."

Er, good luck with that one. That'd quickly meet with a Red Army tank.

"He expected opposition from organisers, but said, 'If the Chinese are against the plan, that means they are against human rights.'''

Yeah, no kidding.

"Voordewind has only just begun enlisting world support. Neither the Dutch government nor the Olympic Committee have backed him.

Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said the government regularly brings up human rights issues at meetings with Chinese officials and has no plans to support a boycott of the games or the opening ceremony."

That's because nobody intends to grow a pair before Beijing's gross spectacle.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fidel Castro just wrote a five-part, lengthy series of drivel on why John McCain sucks...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 4:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Fidel Castro steps down to let his turd brother take the permanent reins in Cuba, there are bound to be a number of apologists for the tyrant coming out of the woodwork. Just refer them to Cuba Archive, an ongoing project that is compiling documentation online of the victims of Castro's 49 iron-fisted years:

"To date, over 9,000 records have been entered into the electronic system, which grows as additional cases are entered and research and outreach efforts expand. ...The state led by Fidel and Raúl Castro emerges responsible for thousands of firing squad executions and extrajudicial killings. The archive reports over one thousand deaths in prisons, police stations, or State Security offices, as well as dozens of civilians murdered while trying to escape by sea or seeking asylum in foreign embassies and at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo. Pregnant women assassinated in political prisons and religious leaders and minors executed by firing squad are part of the tragic record. Nine extrajudicial killings and five deaths of prisoners for lack of medical attention are recorded for 2007."

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 4:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So week before last, I was invited to a screening of "Golda's Balcony" -- the new film version of the stage play -- at the Writers Guild Theatre, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and Stand With Us in celebration of Israel's 60th birthday. Afterward, I sat and chatted at length with star Valerie Harper -- yes, Rhoda plays Golda wonderfully -- about women leaders, identity politics, and Golda Meir, who was prime minister of Israel when America was still struggling with issues of equality.

I wrote about my talk with Valerie (an awesome person -- she and her hubby, the film's producer, insisted on walking me to my car after the theater closed) as well as my thoughts on women leaders at Pajamas Media today (where I have new pieces weekly):

As I watched the life of the former prime minister unfold onscreen, I chuckled at the thought of how our 2008 obsession with identity politics seems to forget the great leaders — who just happened to be women — who have long had the attention of the rest of the world. After all, Oprah is not the most powerful woman in the world; that woman is, as ranked by Forbes, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But Merkel is a conservative. Meir fought for Israel’s survival in the Yom Kippur War. Even Condoleezza Rice’s term as secretary of state has not been hailed as a great advance for women and/or African-Americans. So is a leader who happens to be a women only hailed as advancement if she pursues a feminist agenda outlined by NOW or the Code Pink sisters?

It raises serious questions when Ms. magazine last month refused to run an American Jewish Congress ad hailing Israel’s powerful women leaders: Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, with the words “This is Israel.”

Ms. told the Jerusalem Post that the ad was rejected for being too political, as two of the three women were from the Kadima party (which happens to also be the ruling party, hence making the magazine’s argument that the ad was unacceptable partisanship all the more ridiculous).

I later ask Valerie how Meir wasn't compartmentalized in the stereotype of women leaders:

“Golda was an amazing person, I think, male or female, in that she was both a visionary and an activist,” Harper said. “A lot of activists have sort of a vision, but they’re so in the doing that they don’t get the big picture, and some of the visionaries are very bad when it comes to the practical application and the doing. She was both. She held the vision just so clean and clear and her whole raison d’etre was ‘I want a world that’s safe for Jews.’"

Read the whole thing!

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today in my column I write about the constitutional change pushed through Turkey's parliament by the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, the party to which the president and prime minister also belong, to allow Islamic head scarves in universities. It seems like a cut-and-dry religious freedom issue, but it's not so simple for the secular Muslim republic established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Do proponents of keeping the head-scarf ban relish the thought of limiting religious expression? No. They're operating out of a real fear of the snowball effect in which Islamic movements have pressured those perceived to be less pious to follow their interpretation of Islam.

In other words, they fear those who will see it as their religious duty to ensure that women cover up.

"The heads of many girls are shaved by their brothers to force them to wear head scarves," Turkish opposition lawmaker Nesrin Baytok said.

And we see what's happened in places like Iran, where top cleric Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said in December, "Women who do not respect the hijab and their husbands deserve to die."

In Iraq, women who don't wear the head scarf face outrageous threats. "Next time, I want to see you wearing a hijab or I swear to God the three of you will be killed immediately," the Times of London reports a Shiite militia member telling a group of Christian girls at the entrance to a university in Basra. Iraqi journalists report of women being shot or even killed for not wearing the hijab.

This is what Turks, like the tens of thousands who marched against the constitutional change over the weekend, fear. In a secular society, they fear extremists using a personal expression of modesty as a weapon to subjugate women.

There's also an interesting column from Saturday by Turkish Daily News writer Gila Benmayor that responds to Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister Cemil Çiçek's assertion that proponents of keeping the headscarf ban were "spreading terror and radioactive fear like the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant." Benmayor notes how the number of women working in public institutions has dropped during the rule of Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and notes other signs of increasing conservatism: "As of April 1 an alcoholic beverage ban will be enforced in sports clubs, social facilities, bars and restaurants. The Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) also bans scenes with alcoholic drinks in television series and films. To utter the word 'drinks' in dialogues is part of this ban."

Benmayor cites research that pokes holes in Islamists' contention that the head scarf ban was keeping women out of universities:

"Failure in the university entrance exam is the main reason for girls not attending university. Among the reasons for them not having university education are marriage and work requirement but the one listed at the bottom is the headscarf issue.

Only 1 percent of female students do not enroll in universities due to headscarf concerns."

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday was Religious Freedom Day. You might have overlooked it, but President George W. Bush didn't. He even issued a Religious Freedom Day proclamation -- from that bastion of religious freedom, Saudi Arabia.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may remember that French Prez Nicolas Sarkozy got a minute-divorce from his wife Cecelia (who didn't even vote for him) in mid-October, then two months later he was cavorting at Euro Disney with model/singer Carla Bruni. Now it seems the newsome twosome are headed down the aisle.

Here's the wager: The French president's term is five years. How many first ladies will France have in that time?

Meanwhile, conservative Muslim nations are asking Sarko to leave the canoodling at home. Apparently, they already raised ire among Egyptian officials for sharing a room on their pyramid sightseeing sojourn, and the Saudis have flat-out told Sarko to leave his honey at home.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 3:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This from today's stormy election in Kenya:

"Elections chief Samuel Kivuitu, who read the results on live television after other media were expelled from the main vote headquarters Sunday, said (incumbent Mwai) Kibaki beat Odinga by 231,728 votes in the closest race in Kenya's history.

...But even Kivuitu had acknowledged problems with the count, including a constituency where voter turnout added up to 115 percent and another where a candidate ran away with ballot papers."

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At first, I was wary of Mike Huckabee's foreign policy prowess (or lack of it). Now, I just want to cry. First he didn't know what the NIE on Iran's nuclear program was about. Then he thought Pakistan was still under martial law. I mean, turning the assassination of Benazir Bhutto into an illegal-immigration stump was just disastrous:

"'In light of what happened in Pakistan yesterday, it's interesting that there are more Pakistanis who have illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality except for those immediately south of our border,' Huckabee said Friday.

...Huckabee said 660 Pakistanis entered the country illegally last year. When asked by a reporter the source for that statistic, Huckabee appeared unsure, saying, 'Those are numbers that I got today from a briefing, and I believe they are CIA and immigration numbers.' The Huckabee campaign later said the figure came from a March 2006 report by The Denver Post.

But the Border Patrol told CNN on Friday that it apprehended only 'a handful' of illegal immigrants from Pakistan in 2007.

The number of illegal immigrants from Pakistan deported or apprehended is not mentioned in the latest report from the Department of Homeland Security/Office of Immigration Statistics. In 2005, the nation did not make the list of the top 10 sources of illegal immigrants. The previous year, Pakistan was the last country listed, but no specific numbers were given."

And now this:

"On Friday morning, Huckabee listed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has 'spoken or will continue to speak.'

At a Thursday evening news conference, Huckabee said, 'I've corresponded with John Bolton, who's agreed to work with us on developing foreign policy.'

Bolton, however, has a different view. 'I’d be happy to speak with Huckabee, but I haven’t spoken with him yet,' said Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.

...Huckabee said he had also spoken with former State Department official Richard Haass (now president of the Council on Foreign Relations); military analyst Ken Allard; former national security adviser Richard Allen; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank; and a 'number of military personnel.'

Reached via e-mail, Allen said an intermediary asked him to speak with Huckabee, but he hadn't yet agreed. 'I'm gradually getting older, but am fully capable of recalling with whom I have spoken,' said the former Nixon and Reagan foreign policy campaign adviser."

I cannot support a candidate who's so out to lunch on foreign policy. And that's a beef I have with Mitt Romney as well, who delivered a similarly lame response to the Bhutto assassination:

"'If the answer for leading the country is someone that has a lot of foreign policy experience, we can just go down to the State Department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who spent all their life in foreign policy,' he said Thursday in New Hampshire.

Instead, Mr. Romney said, what is needed is a chief executive with leadership and the ability to assemble 'a great team of people to be able to guide and direct them to understand what decision has to be made.'"

Who really wants a president who's leaning on a stable of "yes"-men, who needs aides whispering in his ear every time he meets with a foreign delegation? A leader knows the issues and knows how to make decisions, not someone who brushes off the importance of foreign policy expertise.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tragedy in Pakistan today as, sadly, the inevitable happened: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a cowardly little extremist who then blew himself up. Already, Ron Paul is on Fox, whining that this means we should keep our noses out of Pakistan as well as every other country -- that nuclear arsenal that could fall into the hands of Islamists, Ron, would definitely not stop at Pakistan's borders, nor does the tug-of-war between moderates and extremists. And on the campaign trail, comments generally looked like a competitive joust of who knew Bhutto best, who knew her longer (Clinton said she did), yadda yadda. The AP story on candidates' reactions is a bit gentler than the TV coverage, but still the campaigns are spinning the assassination into an opportunity to state that they're the best at foreign policy, dealing with the Islamic threat, and just best to be president in general:

"At a high school in Lawton, Iowa, on Thursday, Clinton said she had come to know Bhutto during the former prime minister's years in office and her time in exile and was "profoundly saddened and outraged" by the assassination.

In a world of such violence and threats, Clinton said, 'it certainly raises the stakes high for what we expect from our next president. I know from a lifetime of working to make change.'

Giuliani said the assassination underscored a need for the U.S. to increase its efforts to combat terrorism.

'Her murderers must be brought to justice, and Pakistan must continue the path back to democracy and the rule of law,' Giuliani said in a statement. 'Her death is a reminder that terrorism anywhere — whether in New York, London, Tel-Aviv or Rawalpindi — is an enemy of freedom. We must redouble our efforts to win the terrorists' war on us.'"

Can't, for the moment, anyone just express their sympathies and leave the footballing for another day? I guess this is what Bhutto gets for dying so close to the Iowa caucuses.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When on long driving trips, as I was today, I often listen to Rush Limbaugh. His rants and screeds keep my blood pressure elevated and my attention focused. I often find him funny and fairly clever in his arguments and rhetoric. I can appreciate a pro—even when I strenuously disagree.

Therefore I was so stunned to find myself giving him “major liberal dittos” today that I nearly ran off of I-5 (on my way to visit my two perfect, beautiful and brilliant granddaughters). In between razzing Hillary for her haggard appearance, Bill for his lusts and global warming Cassandras for believing that global warming is man made, he was mocking the idea that ethanol could contribute in any way to a better world. I so hated the fact that I agreed with him that I spent the next four hours questioning my reasoning.

Upon conscientious reflection, I again concluded that ethanol is a terrible idea on every level. It does not make the environment cooler. We must refine it and then burn it in our cars. We still expend energy in tilling the fields, planting and then harvesting the crops. It does not significantly change our importation of oil from the Middle East—and won’t for the foreseeable future.

Ethanol is a feel good boondoggle. Only John McCain has had the huevos, the chutzpah to tell Iowans that he opposes governmental subsides for ethanol. The rest of the presidential panderers tell the Iowans what they want to hear. It seems like a win-win, but it is really a lose-lose proposition.

Some day, our descendents will look at our choice to turn food into fuel for our cars, while human beings starved, as a crime against humanity. How, I wonder, can my fellow liberals think that this is not monstrous but actually a good and noble idea?

That we, in all countries, spew smoke into the skies is bad enough. That our industrial production poisons our rivers and oceans is clearly terrible. But how, in good conscience, can we trade arable land and the production of calories, that feed bodies and keep people alive, into transportation? Our choice to do this has a cost in lives.

Some day we may turn the wind and tides into energy. Some day we will learn how to build the means of storing the sun’s energy. Till then, we will burn oil and coal, and it will degrade our environment. But turning our fields from food to fuel does several murderous things. It raises the price of food. The less corn for food for us and livestock, the more expensive the corn becomes. The higher the subsidy for corn, the more fields get turned to its cultivation and removed from other food crops.
When you consider how much corn is used in food, there is an enormous domino effect in our whole food chain.

Oil costs far more than we think. There is the price of getting it, refining it and shipping it. There is also the unaccounted cost of protecting it—hence wars around the world, the costs of which are not directly paid at the pump, but are paid none-the-less in our military budget and foreign aid to protect trade routs and prop up bad governments.

These are all good reasons to move towards other ways of producing energy. There is a price for oil that we pay in blood. But squeeze corn life also oozes out—not with the terrible violence of our oil wars of the last 100 years, but with slow and agonizing deaths by hunger and malnutrition.

Yes, other non-caloric crops have similar consequences—coffee, tea, tobacco and even flowers come at a cost. Maybe we are willing to pay, but it is never with the thought that we pay with our own lives or the lives of our children. Yet, it does come home to us—but again, like the invisible but real oil subsidy, not directly. Hunger breeds desperation and war. In our shrinking world, we will not be able to contain the hunger in the Third World. Their pain, their suffering and their rage will come to our shores, and we shall surely send our children to theirs.

As bad as oil is and as much as we need to transition from it, taking food from the mouths of babies so we can argue about changing mandated mileage from 25 to 35 MPG in ten years is cruel nonsense and the future will not forgive us our moral callousness or willful ignorance.

Many of our social policies and choices are between imperfect policies. We make many difficult, really agonizing, moral choices. Moral calculus should be agonizing and not feel good delusions. We are used to thinking about guns and butter. How about oil, food, flour and flowers? We have tough choices to make; let’s make them honestly.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, authoritarianism is not hot, though few tyrants wear a wifebeater shirt quite as well. Time did a good job of making Putin look like a bobblehead doll on its cover, but I wholeheartedly agree with Chris that the cover would have best gone elsewhere.

My choice? Garry Kasparov. The only thing that has kept this opposition leader alive under the Putin regime is the fact that he's a chess legend. The fact that he's a chess legend also makes him totally hot, shirt or no shirt. Kasparov could have comfortably retired and kicked back for the rest of his life, but he's taken the challenge to fight for freedom for the Russian people. He is truly David vs. Goliath. He has cojones.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The French prez, who's been single for about two months after a lickety-split divorce, has apparently discovered It's a Small World in the dating pool:

"Recently divorced French President Nicolas Sarkozy doesn't appear to be hiding his latest love interest.

He visited Disneyland Paris with supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni this weekend, the respected weekly L'Express reported on its website.

Three magazines will run images of the two in this week's editions, L'Express said.

The president's office would not comment on the status of the two."

Well, maybe this woman will actually vote for him.

Meanwhile, visiting Moammar Gadhafi last week had a date with 1,000 French women, but that's another story...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 2:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We now return to our regular heavy-handed rule in Pakistan, coupled with an al-Qaida/Taliban power keg and general pervasive instability as well as fatal bird flu.

Musharraf had a message today for all of his haters: Stop whining. I saved the country. "Against my will and as a last resort, I imposed emergency rule and saved Pakistan from destabilisation."

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This has become a bonafide hit in Venezuela -- Gucci- and Louis Vuitton-clad Interior Minister Pedro Carreno slamming capitalism and singing the praises of socialism... until a journalist asks him to then explain his duds:

"'I don't, uh ... I ... of course,' stammered Carreno on Tuesday before regaining his composure. 'It's not contradictory because I would like Venezuela to produce all this so I could buy stuff produced here instead of 95 percent of what we consume being imported.'"

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out the guy Vladimir Putin has hand-picked as his puppet to be the next Russian president, first deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev. I tell ya, Russia may be regressing to the Cold War era in terms of declining human rights and an increasingly autocratic state, but these Soviet Part Deux leaders are no squidgy, shoe-banging buffoons. Will Medvedev campaign with shirtless photos like those that have boosted his puppetmaster's popularity? Heck, can Garry Kasparov lead opposition protests with his shirt off? Chess mastery is hot! Might it be kinda cold in Russia for so many strapping politicos to be running around shirtless?

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Consider, dearest readers, the case of Ms. Gillian Gibbons.

Full of impractical thoughts - but good intentions and the right feelings - Ms. Gibbons sashayed from Britain down to The Sudan a few months ago, intent to teach the bright youngins of Khartoum's Unity High School.

"What's that," you say, dearest reader, "ain't Sudan the place that George Clooney goes running around clandestine-like 'cause there's murder and maheym and genocide?"

Um, yeah.

"Ain't the government of Sudan pretty much allowing this genocide to occur," you query.

Um, yes again.

"Ain't Sudan full of Radical muslims, and ain't most of the murder and mayhem being caused by them," you query, puzzled by the plainest of facts.

The answer is yes, indeed, and your confusion is well founded, I assure you. A war zone is an unpleasant place to live. It's really difficult place to teach school, though doing so is courageous. That is, unless, of course, you're not a local, and you're heading into a place where the bulk of the locals want to kill you in the name of the Jihad. Then you're just plain stupid.

Ms. Gibbons, it seems, didn't quite accept that folks who crash airplanes into buildings in the name of religion - or who actively support genocide of peasants - might be a tad off kilter. No no, they just need a few good examples and positive feeeeeeelings, and all will be right in the universe.

All they need is love, no?

Well, no.

"A conservative," it has been said, "is a Liberal who has been mugged."

Perhaps Ms. Gibbons will come to realize the gravity and insult of the intellectual mugging she's just received. And, perhaps, she will join those of us who recognize the enemy for what it is, and stop coddling the irrational with feelings.

Feelings are nice, but they won't salve 40 lashings - not even those inflicted for a teddy bear.

Posted by Robert C.J. Parry at 9:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a matter of speaking: Hugo Chavez thinks he is God, and is scared as hell of the Catholic leaders who continue to oppose him as he makes Venezuela more and more like Cuba. I write about this little-reported (in the U.S., that is) clash of the Chavez and the church on Pajamas Media:

"...Chavez has invoked the name of Christ so much lately you’d expect him to become the first communist televangelist. But as he refers to Jesus as 'the greatest socialist in history,' his invocations are hardly Christ-like as they usually involve spitting venom at his opponents.

Like how he recently took aim at Venezuela’s Catholic leader Cardinal Jorge Urosa and other opposition clergymen: 'If Christ were still alive and physically present, I’m completely sure he’d take them out with whippings,' he audaciously told a crowd of supporters.

On Nov. 11, Urosa told Globovision TV that Chavez’s slate of 69 constitutional amendments 'leads toward a single ideology and that, of course, is going to be discriminatory, it’s going to be exclusionary and it’s going to have terrible consequences for all liberties.'

Cue Hugo’s next un-Christian move: revenge.

Earlier this month, a pro-government student leader said that Chavistas were waiting for the call to 'take' Andres Bello Catholic University.

On Friday, El Universal reported that the National Assembly directed its committees on Domestic Policy and Education to launch an investigation into Venezuela’s Catholic schools for supposedly fomenting rebellion against Chavez’s constitutional reformation.

But the Church would be falling down on the job if it didn’t be a strong, good shepherd in the face of the wolf.

The archbishops and bishops of Venezuela issued a statement on Oct. 19 entitled 'Called to Live in Freedom,' taking such a stand against Chavez’s shameless initiative. 'The proposed Reform excludes political and social sectors not in agreement with a Socialist State, restricts freedom and represents a retrocession in the progress of respect for human rights,' the bishops’ conference wrote..."

Read the whole thing!

I have one more thing to say to Hugo: Por que no te callas?!??!???

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pakistan's new prime minister, Mohammedmian Soomro. Check out the chops on this bro'!

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See that bored Turkish soldier? He's just hanging out on the border with Iraq, waiting for the word to go in and rout the Kurdistan Workers' Party. It seems that word will come any moment, but there may have been far too many words -- at least public ones:

"...With the Turkish government talking openly for weeks about the likelihood of an attack, the official said intelligence information shows the guerrillas have been evacuating their camps and melting away into cities and other regions.

...In northern Iraq, Osman Ocalan, brother of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, told AP some fighters had moved toward Iran, and that there were now more PKK fighters there than in northern Iraq."

Well, that's a pain, huh? Is Turkey going to attack Iran?

Therein lies my problem with modern warfare, where plans are hashed out on cable news before the first tank even shifts into gear. If Turkey pulled off that rare thing nowadays known as a surprise attack, the rebels would still be tucked into their little border camps: Wham, bam, bye-bye. But extended, public discussion following Turkey's first statement of intent to attack has given the PKK militants the opportunity to blend into cities, where strikes would ensure civilian casualties. And you'd better believe they'd have safe haven in Iran until Turkey was finished attacking northern Iraq, ready to slip back -- and be poised for more border attacks on the Turks -- as soon as the coast is clear.

Turkey may want to open a can on the PKK, but their delays have just opened up new cans of worms.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Supermodel Naomi "Duck, I'm Armed with a Phone" Campbell, who's now up on the wall of shame with Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Kevin Spacey and Sean Penn.

Meanwhile, thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets to protest Chavez's constitutional changes that could extend his rule indefinitely, nix the autonomy of universities, and shove socialism even more down everyone's throats by labeling land as community property. Naomi might better recognize these grass-roots demonstrators standing up for democracy as the "little people."

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Haven't the people of Rwanda suffered enough already? As though genocide, civil war, oppression, extreme poverty and misery weren't enough, now comes the devastating revelation that Paris Hilton has canceled her visit. The Associated Press bears the bad news:

"Due to the restructuring of the Playing for Good Foundation, the philanthropic trip to Rwanda that the foundation had previously planned with Paris has been postponed," the children's charity said Thursday in a statement.

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I realize the title of this post might be self-evident, but I don't know how else to respond to the UN's trotting out the ever-popular, but unbelievably obtuse, theory that the Catholic Church's teaching on artificial contraception has anything to do with the spread of HIV in Latin America.

The theory goes something like this:

1. The Catholic Church teaches that artificial contraception is sinful.
2. There are hundreds of millions of Catholics in Latin America.
3. Due to Church teaching, these faithful Catholics don't use condoms; thus
4. They are spreading HIV like wildfire.

Here's the problem: The Church teaches that all sex outside of marriage and not open to new life is immoral. Thus, for this scenario to make any sense at all, we have to presume that there are millions of faithful, practicing Latin American Catholics who disregard nearly all Catholic teaching about sexuality -- that is, they have sex before marriage, outside of marriage, with multiple partners, and with members of the same sex -- yet somehow cling fiercely to (and only to) the teaching on condoms. (Never mind that many of these people are also using other forms of illicit contraception, such as the Pill, and/or getting abortions, which, any Catholic should know, is also gravely sinful.)

Now, I've met many Catholics from many nations over the years who are selective about which parts of Church teaching they honor. Many, even, are adamant about keeping sex for marriage, but ignore the proscription on artificial contraception. But I have never met a Catholic -- not a single one -- who shuns artificial contraception while embracing fornication. Such creatures simply don't exist, and certainly not in sufficient numbers to spread HIV across an entire continent.

But if you really want to see how stupid the UN is, consider this quote, courtesy of Alberto Stella, the UNAIDS Coordinator for Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica:

"In Latin America the use of condoms has been demonized, but if they were used in every relation I guarantee the epidemic would be resolved in the region."

Well, Alberto, you may be right: If Latin Americans used condoms "in every relation," there would be no more epidemic. Of course, there would also be no more Latin Americans.

(I think I hear echoes of Margaret Sanger ... )

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Associated Press:

NEW DELHI - Wild monkeys attacked a senior government official who then fell from a balcony at his home and died Sunday, media reported.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The president and prime minister of Poland, that is, Lech (left) and Jaraslow, respectively. Jaraslow may not be prime minister after elections today, but Lech will still be president. I always thought twins in the seats of power was a kick -- imagine sending your twin to a vote or event in your place. Heck, imagine how much more mischief Antonio Villaraigosa could get into if he had a twin!

If Jaraslow loses his job, at least he won't lose a roof over his head -- at age 58, he lives with his cat-lady mother who irons his pants for him.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently Bridget heart-throb Vladimir Putin thinks he's the next Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or at least that's what he's saying in his speeches and through his government-controlled media. The Washington Post reports:

FDR, according to a consistent story line here, tamed power-hungry tycoons to save his country from the Great Depression. He restored his people's spirits while leading the United States for 12 years and spearheaded the struggle against "outside enemies," as the mass-circulation tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda put it.

Translation: Putin rescued an enfeebled Russia from the chaos of the 1990s, banished or imprisoned dangerous billionaires and regained respect for his newly enriched country on the world stage.

And Roosevelt ran for a third and fourth term because his country needed him. Translation: Putin, too, should stay.

Gee, I always thought of Putin more Mussolini than FDR, but he does have a point with that third and fourth-term business. Who knows, if he tries to pack the Supreme Court or creates a welfare state -- or defeats the forces of international fascism in his time -- he just could pull it off!

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Cecilia, have split, getting a minute-divorce from a French judge, giving the French something new to gossip about. Will it affect his presidency? Nah. Europeans are pretty chill about politicians' personal lives. And after all, the marriage may have gotten off to a shaky start, considering that Nicolas met Cecilia while, as a mayor, officiating over her wedding to another man (so French!). And considering Cecilia didn't even vote for Nicolas after years of marriage, that pretty much spells D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The newest members of the U.N. Security Council, as of yesterday:

Libya, Vietnam, Burkina Faso

Wow!! A trio of one-party states where you're liable to get a bullet in the brain if you dis' the rulers! Aren't you glad the Security Council is tasked with protecting the world??

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 1:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

China's temper tantrum swings into full force as the Dalai Lama is set to receive the Congressional Gold Medal tomorrow! From their Communist Party boss:

"We are furious. If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world."

Whaaaaa??!??!?? There's more, from the foreign minister:

"China has solemnly demanded the United States cancel the above-mentioned and extremely wrongful arrangement."

China also pulled out of six-party talks on Iran today in a lame-o sign of protest, a foot-stomping, wailing gesture akin to a really crabby toddler.

Honoring the Dalai Lama reminds the world -- before China's precious P.R. Olympics -- of the Beijing regime's egregious, continued human rights violations. That's why China's so scared.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Putin calls off -- er, delays -- his trip to Iran because Russian intelligence claims that he'll be targeted for demolition by suicide bombers. I hate to be this flip in the Age of Terror, but I've gotta say: Whatever. Unless we're talking about some Chechens who bought tickets to Tehran, I'm really not buying that something would happen to Vlad visiting a regime that he couldn't be more kiss-kiss, huggy huggy with at the moment. Iran needs veto-wielder Russia to stonewall action against its nuclear program at the Security Council. Iran also needs Putin -- who's pretending to be the great peacemaker in this situation -- to divert attention as they enrich their uranium. And as far as suppliers... well, let's just say they have BFF written all over them.

And let's be serious -- when the Russian secret service is hot on the trail of a supposed assassination plot, it's not exactly something they'd put on the front-page news. Hence the word "secret." It is, however, worthwhile to cook up a bit of faux news as a P.R. stunt: Putin braves suicide bombing threats to trek to Tehran to make "peace" (cough cough)!

A hard-line newspaper in Iran said it all:

"Iran can use the visit to lobby for getting our nuclear dossier out of the U.N. Security Council and Russia can strengthen its opposition to the U.S. through boosting ties with Tehran."

Ahhh, so cozy....

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Granted, the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize took a nosedive when it was awarded to Yasser Arafat, but now it's proven to be nothing more than a political back-patting tool. After doing the awards circuit through Hollywood for his questionable global-warming tome, Al Gore now scoops up the Nobel Prize, despite a) junk science having little to do with peace, b) chiding others about climate change while hopping on his gas-guzzling private jet, and c) his Live Earth concerts leaving a carbon footprint the size of Godzilla's.

What's nauseating is not so much another honor for Gore, but those whose struggles have been ignored to throw wreaths at the ex-vice president (and Manbearpig hunter, hat tip to "South Park"). What about Father Nguyen Van Ly, the Vietnamese priest who's worked tirelessly for democracy and spent years in and out of dank prisons for rallying the people for freedom? What about Kareem Amer, the Egyptian blogger who advocated peace and justice, and now sits in prison? What about the monks of Burma, many of whom are now dead or missing because, as the world stood by and just watched, they took the lead to demand democracy in peaceful marches through Myanmar's streets?

Then again, none of those people really working for peace has ever walked a red carpet -- just seen the red of bloodshed and oppression in countries few seem to care about anymore, and did all in their power to make a difference.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

How many deaths does it take to constitute a genocide? Numbers alone apparently are not enough. The victims must be targeted for removal or extinction because of their race, ethnicity, tribe or religion. According to the Turkish government, there is one more condition: They must accept their banishment and slaughter without fighting back.

Does this sound absurd? I hope so. It is both absurd and cruel. Yet this is the Turkish position today and not nearly a century ago when a million and a half Armenians lost their lives.

Turkey admits some Armenians died, were removed and killed, but denies it was genocide because some Turks were also killed when those Armenians didn’t go quietly to their deaths. Turkish apologists try to rationalize the slaughter by insisting that they were trying to establish a modern state, drive out the old Ottomans and also had to fight a Christina conspiracy that was seeking power and autonomy within the state.

What Turkey did around the time of WWI cannot be undone. But their denial is an ongoing violation of both decency and history. If we cannot tell the truth, we cannot learn. If we cannot learn, we are destined to repeat. This is why the issue of the genocide against the Armenians is important.

We face an absurd situation where we deplore Ahmadinejad of Iran’s Holocaust denial, where other Holocaust deniers in Europe are jailed—denial being a crime—and Turkey gets a free pass. Is one genocide more egregious than another? With one you go to jail and with another you get most favored nation status. This must not stand.

I understand why the United States doesn’t want to offend Turkey. We want the use of air bases and need to transship supplies into Iraq. We also need them as part of NATO and as our friend in a rough neighborhood.

I understand why Israel has many of the same motives. Turkey is Israel’s best friend in the Muslim World. They have had historically good relations and the Turkish Jewish community has been relatively well tolerated in Turkey. Thus Israel also avoids recognizing the Armenian genocide.

I will tell you as an American and a Jew that I find this frankly embarrassing. I understand the political calculus but the moral calculus is unacceptable. As with the issue of greeting the Dalai Lama, much to China’s displeasure, we need to act on the basis of our own values and moral commitments.

Turkey is not alone in having done terrible things. If it makes them feel better than can pass a resolution deploring slavery in America and our treatment and mistreatment of our Native Americans. No country is without sin. It is better not to perpetuate the sins with denial, bullying and blackmail. Accept the truth and it will set you free of the burden of angry denial.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This morning, at the Biltmore downtown, I sat down with Robert Amsterdam, international counsel for Mikhail Khordokovsky, the onetime Yukos oil tycoon and Putin opponent who sits in a Siberian gulag. He had some very interesting things to say about the Khodorkovsky case, espionage (!), and Putin's shameless power grab, which I write about in my column. In super-quick turnaround time, it's up for your Russian-intrigue reading pleasure.

And, no, my sole purpose in writing this column wasn't the opportunity to run Putin's beefy beefcake photo again. Really. I swear.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Of course, he's still revered in Cuba -- where they're basically 40 years behind on everything, thanks to Fidel -- and adorns the chest of every suburban spoiled brat wannabe revolutionary, as well as popping up at every anti-war protest (as if, um, he was a pacifist). I like the beginning of this AP story:

"Fidel Castro insists Ernesto 'Che' Guevara could never have been taken prisoner 40 years ago if his gun hadn't malfunctioned. But the retired Bolivian general who led the mission to capture him says the Argentine revolutionary was hardly a heroic figure in his final moments.

The man that Gen. Gary Prado remembers — sad, sick, hungry, dressed in rags and alone in the jungle — simply dropped his gun and surrendered, saying, 'Don't shoot, I'm Che.'

'He wasn't the figure of the heroic guerrilla,' Prado recalled in an interview with The Associated Press Thursday night.

...Prado is bitter that Guevara still gets so much global attention four decades later. He's angry that Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales plans to honor Guevara but not the 55 soldiers who died putting down his attempted revolution in Bolivia."

That's because if either Castro or Hugo Chavez told Morales to slowly lick their boots shiny clean, he'd gladly put tongue to shoe for his leftist idols.

But here's a better idea to mark the 40th anniversary of Che's death: Go shopping at Che-Mart, an online boutique that ably highlights the relentless capitalistic marketing of his image, where you can find such gems as this T-shirt:

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before it's too late. This one courtesy of Mike Lester at the Rome News Tribune:

Posted by Chris Weinkopf at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pet food, toys, now even cups are suspected carriers of lead from China!

If it feels like everything in your house might kill you slowly in that unique lead-poisoning kind of way, you may be right! Today there were more recalls of toys and things that are probably liberally distributed throughout American homes, like the sporty drink containers, which might have lead thanks to China:

the Alpine Design aluminum water bottles sold at Sports Authority. The water bottles are sold in different colors and measure between six and 10 1/2 inches tall. The water bottles are silver, blue, red, blue with pink flowers, red with the depiction of a mouse, or blue with the depiction of a zebra. "Alpine Design" is painted on the water bottle

And funky green Frankenstein heads, which have 65 times the amount of acceptable lead!, as well as other Halloween-themed kid things.

Oh, but that's not all. Also worrisome are Baby Einstein toys and "Pirates of the Caribbean" crap that are listed in this Associated Press story.
You know, nuclear bombs and crashing planes into building are just a couple of ways to take down a nation. Perhaps China is trying a stealthy new strategy to kill off the next generation and the kitties and doggies that they love.

Posted by Mariel Garza at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm posting this today as part of the International Bloggers' Day for Burma, where bloggers are posting only once in solidarity with the Burmese people. Click here for more information about the campaign. If you have a blog or Web site, it's not too late to join in the worldwide statement! It's amazing to look at the list of participants to see how they span the globe.

Today also marks one week since Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai was slain in Yangon while filming a protest. His body has just arrived back in Japan. May he rest in peace, and may his killers be brought to justice.

For more perspective on the sad lack of global concern (um, U.N.!!) on the situation there, check out my column this week.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's Kim Jong Il in 2000, left, and as seen today as he emerged from his palace to hop in one of his topless Mercedes to roll out the red carpet for South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun. The purpose of this combo picture by the AP wasn't to show his fashion evolution, but to show he was an ice queen:

"North Korean leader Kim Jong Il welcomed South Korea's president to Pyongyang displaying scant enthusiasm Tuesday while orchestrated crowds cheered the start of the second-ever summit between the divided Koreas since World War II.

The greeting was a stark contrast to the first North-South summit in 2000, when Kim greeted then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung with smiles and clasped both his hands tightly in an emotional moment that softened the North Korean strongman's image to South Koreans and the world.

This time, Kim appeared reserved and unemotional, walking slowly and occasionally clapping lightly to encourage the crowd of thousands at the outdoor welcome ceremony, who waved red and pink paper flowers. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun appeared to revel in the moment, waving and smiling broadly before reviewing a goose-stepping North Korean military honor guard wielding rifles with bayonets."

Roh, I think you're enjoying the goose-steppers a little too much. Kim is just probably wallowing in how difficult it is to be him, how tiresome being a maniacal leader crushing the starving masses can be. And yes, he's probably lonely...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 3:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Putin critic and chess god Garry Kasparov is going to vie for the Russian presidency, though it's really unlikely he'll win. But he might with a speech like this:

"When it comes to leading Russia, the choice is black or white. Do you want a king and queen in the Kremlin, or a knight who stands up for the people? I am no one's pawn. So rook no further and check me out, mate, as your next president!"

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An excerpt from an address delivered by Hasan Rahimpur Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution, which aired on Iranian TV -- the land of no homosexuals, as Ahmadinejad told us earlier this week -- on Sept. 3:

"[The Westerners] have transgressed all moral boundaries... The husband and wife are no longer satisfied with one another, and they begin having relations with other men and women. After a while, they start thinking that since they have already experienced this, it is time to try homosexuality. Then, they think this is old-fashioned, and they turn to animals. These things happen in the West. After a while, when they get bored with this, they turn to small children. ... They have now begun turning to objects. There are big factories that produce artificial genitals, and they sell them in stores. A sex shop is a store that sells sex toys."

Er, it sounds like he's speaking from, um, experience...

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The march toward autocratic rule in Venezuela continues, with Hugo Chavez crafting new textbooks that teach Marxism and glorify his Bolivarian revolution. And if private schools do not use the government texts, they'll be shut down:

"Last year Chavez' Minister of Education, Aristobulo Isturiz, laid the groundwork for the new 'Bolivarian' education program to be imposed in Venezuela when he announced: 'Teachers should be the first soldiers of the revolution ... No Director of a public school shall have his, her job validated unless an evaluation is made, so that we are certain that they know what is the type of republic we want.'

Having already consolidated control over Venezuela's public schools and universities, including bringing in Cuban indoctrination experts to consult and injecting Marxism into the curriculum even in the medical schools, Chavez is now assaulting the last bastion of academic independence, the private secondary schools to which business and intellectual leaders send their kids. Objecting that the private schools teach 'capitalism' and 'consumerism,' Chavez has declared that if these schools do not allow inspectors to keep them compliant with the socialist agenda of the 'new Bolivarian educational system,' the schools will be shut down.

Zulay Campos of the Bolivarian State Academic Commission, which will carry out inspections to make sure that private schools comply with the government's curriculum stated: 'We must train socially minded people to help the community, and that's why the revolution's socialist program is being implemented ... If they attack us because we're indoctrinating, well yes, we're doing it, because those capitalist ideas that our young people have — and that have done so much damage to our people — must be eliminated.'"

It's so nice that all of our American actors and activists who've gone to worship at the Temple of Hugo support the thought police.

Also -- quite amusing considering the above photo -- Hugo has blamed the U.S. for big boobs:

"The president went on to discuss what he considers to be the brainwashing of the capitalist world and criticized the major media and mainstream movie industry that penetrate other nations and cultures with the values and ideas of the United States. He criticized, for example, the increasing popularity of breast implants among young women and blamed it on young women's desire 'to be like Barbie.'"

Yeah -- don't tell me Hugo doesn't have a presidential stable of Barbies.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought this pic of the president of Comoros was funny enough (if you remember the movie "The Golden Child," he has the same face as the Nepalese soldier at the airport), but then I read that he's like the Sit 'N' Sleep president of the island nation as well. He owns mattress factories, but also lives above a store called The House of Mattresses. Comoros: Mattress Kingdom!

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 3:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ban Ki-moon mugging and shaking hands with the Myanmar foreign minister, while inviting him over to sign his guest book, at the very moment the Burmese people are being mowed down in cold blood by the junta, as soldiers are raiding monasteries and beating up monks. Sorry, but I wouldn't be able to stomach any photo op or happy meet and greet with that brutal regime.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 3:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've had our fill of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But there's more on the front of tyrannical rulers! Hugo Chavez -- meeting with Kevin Spacey, the latest dingleheaded actor to worship at the Temple of Hugo -- may have ditched the U.N. General Assembly this week, but his minions took out a full-page ad in the New York Times today calling for Americans to throw our democratic notions by the wayside and embrace solidarity with Chavez's Bolivarian revolution.

There's a good reason why -- after all, Chavez is, according to his own humble estimation, like Russell Crowe in "Gladiator" (though significantly less attractive in a skirt):

"'Gladiator' - What a movie! I saw it three times," the president tells an Associated Press reporter traveling with him in a Toyota 4Runner, along with his daughter and a state governor. "It's confronting the empire, and confronting evil. ... And you end up relating to that gladiator."

Did Hugo miss what happened to the wicked, megalomaniac head of state in that movie?

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The dimwit’s Columbia speech is garnering all the attention — for good reason — but he sure dropped some doozies speaking to the National Press Club. Like when the moderator asked: “Would you be willing to meet with Holocaust survivors who wanted to discuss their experiences with you? And why or why not?”

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): What do you want to happen from this?

MODERATOR: I don’t — I’m just asking the question that was handed to me.

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I raised two questions about the Holocaust. I said if the Holocaust happened and is a reality — when, granted that the Holocaust is a reality, then why don’t we allow more research to be done on it? Why are European researchers sent to prison when they question some nature (ph) or aspect of it? Assuming that it — the Holocaust — well, the reality of the Holocaust is here, it saddens us when any human being is killed; Jews, Christians, Muslims — no difference.

How he snapped at the moderator is like the slightly more dignified way of saying, "Ewww!!! Keep them away from me!!!!"

Complete with Freudian slips as he tries to woo America! If it… er, when it; assuming that… er, well the reality…

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Listening to Ahmadinejad is maddening. He may be a violent and hostile monster, but unfortunately he’s not stupid. He exceeded expectations—which is what we call winning these days. He did not drool nor did fire shoot from his eyes. He didn’t rant in a loud voice nor stutter incoherently. He argued. He deflected. He distorted. He ducked the questions asked and answered as his wished. He turned every pointed question into a pointed counter-attack. In other words, he acted like a normal politician.

The reason he was a Columbia was to ah, well, uh. I’m not really sure. From his viewpoint it was to have a platform for propaganda, a place to talk to the American people. Yet more importantly, Columbia gave him a place to stand up to America in front of the Muslim World. It worked for his purposes. Columbia’s president Lee Bollinger was no match for his rhetoric and half-truths.

More interesting than Ahmadinejad’s rhetorical points and Bollinger’s utter ineptitude (embarrassing!) was the audience’s reaction. They applauded statements about the rights of the Palestinians. They sat still for his utter evasions concerning the shipment of arms to Iraq. The only time they reacted negatively was when he denied that there are gay people in Iran. Then there was laughter and hoots of derision and disbelief. Apparently denying the Holocaust is one thing but you better not deny the existence of gay people. Why one lie and willful denial doesn’t trigger the legal concept of “false in one, false in all,” I don’t know.

What our interest was in giving him this platform is hard to know. I guess, as the head of Columbia (the university not the country) Bollinger said it was not about Ahmadinejad’s freedom to speak but our freedom to hear. This was the one piece of solid rhetoric from our side—the side of democracy and decency. While Columbia’s prez tried vainly to inoculate himself from further scorn—and loss of funds—by attacking Ahmadinejad, this only made us look petty and weak.

Among the many things that our society doesn’t understand about both the Arab World and the Muslim World is the law of hospitality. You do not invite someone into your home, whether palace or tent, and attack or discomfort your guest. It is rude, wrong and makes you look bad. The tape and translation of this betrayal of the rules of hospitality, though a factually accurate bill of indictment, will be played all over the world. It will do us harm.

I guess Columbia thought that being liberal means having no discretion what so ever. The moron and chief said that were Hitler available, he would invite him. I suppose the one thing to be said for that kind of lack of taste or judgment is that Hitler would probably not be a Holocaust denier.

There is no freedom of speech issue involved in this in any reasonable or legal way. Ahmadinejad has every right to speak, to lie to print and publish anything he wants. But there is no duty to give him a platform.

I can write anything I want. No one is forced to publish me. Darn. There is no duty, legal or moral, that the Daily News or Friendly Fire has to disseminate my work. It is done at their absolute discretion.

Freedom of speech involves the government’s right to stop or censor what I say. Hell, I’d like a column every day. A radio show would be nice. TV even better. I’d also like that script that’s been sitting in my file drawer to be bought and shot—preferably by Spielberg. I think I’ll sue to get someone to do it. Oh, yeah. Never mind, this is the basic theory of Dan Rather’s suit against CBS. I’ll just wait and see how this works out for him.

The bottom line is that neither Hitler nor Ahmadinejad should be welcomed to our universities. It should not be against the law of the land—only the law of decency.

Posted by Jonathan Dobrer at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I woke up this morning to the sounds of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yammering on the TV, giving us enough sound bites to last through the rest of what will hopefully be his short reign. I mean, where does one start? Iran is supposedly gay-free, women are treated with respect when not being clubbed by religious police for showing skin, and the Holocaust needs further skeptical research like -- and he specifically said -- any other scientific issue like physics theories or math equations (thank you, Dr. Mengele). Ahmadinejad doubted al-Qaida's involvement in 9-11, and when asked to answer if he sought the destruction of Israel -- with a simple "yes" or "no" answer -- he wouldn't respond and went off on a tangent.

It's not surprising that Ahmadinejad said any of these things. It is sad that some people in the audience applauded some of his assertions. But as my friend Gay Patriot West (gays -- purely an American phenomenon, according to Mahmoud) points out, Ahmadinejad's Bush-hatred frankly makes him attractive to many Americans who have taken the mantra "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" way too far. GPW latches onto a Daily Kos post where a writer describes her crush on Ahmadinejad, passion stoked by mutual Bush-hatred.

And, in response to my earlier thoughts, apparently Columbia would welcome Adolf Hitler to speak! A dean at the school said:

"If (Hitler) were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."

Gee, would students then be assigned term papers to debate the merits and drawbacks of his "final solution"? If Hitler waltzed into New York to speak at a college campus, was given security by the state, was given a platform for his hate, how much culpability would those who welcomed him then have when it comes to the continuance of his rule and the crimes he'd commit?

So a quick recap of Ahmadinejad's speech:

"Women are respected more than men are."

Well, Iran does extend the courtesy of shrouding women before they brutally stone them to death:

And, of course:

"Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."

That would be because they exterminate gays every chance they get:

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hopped on his lil' jet plane to head for U.S. turf, with an aim of telling us what's what. "Due to certain issues, the American people in the past years have been denied correct and clear information about global developments and are eager to hear different opinions," Ahmadinejad told Iran's state-run media.

Ahmadinejad's opinions that we're supposedly so eager to hear include (props to Realite EU):

"We don't shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world.“

"The countdown for the destruction of Israel" has begun.

"Iran does not give a damn about resolutions."

"Them (the West) invented the myth of the massacre of the Jews and placed it above Allah, religions and prophets.”

Yesterday in Paris, legendary mime Marcel Marceau -- a French Jew who escaped deportation to a death camp and whose father died in Auschwitz -- died at age 84. Though he would become famous for his wordless art, as the horrors of the Holocaust unfolded young Marceau was anything but silent:

"With his brother Alain, Marceau became active in the French Resistance, altering children's identity cards by changing birth dates to trick the Nazis into thinking they were too young to be deported. Because he spoke English, he was recruited to be a liaison officer with Gen. George S. Patton's army.

His father was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.

'Yes, I cried for him,' Marceau said. But he said he also thought of the others killed.

'Among those kids was maybe an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug,' he told reporters in 2000. 'That is why we have a great responsibility. Let us love one another.'"

Ahmadinejad and Marceau. The coward, and the hero. The man who would wipe out an entire Jewish nation, and the man who celebrated life and saved children from death camps. The man who denies the Holocaust, and the man who survived.

How can we properly honor the victims of the Holocaust? By listening not just to what Ahmadinejad says on American TV or to Columbia students, but to what he said before he left Iran and what he'll say when he gets back. He is about domination, destruction, and death. And if we are silent in return, we're just inviting a Holocaust sequel.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It started several days ago in Myanmar with a hundred or so Buddhist monks calming marching through the streets in protest of the country's brutal military junta rule. Today, 20,000 monks and nuns -- with civilians joining to form a protective chain around the religious men and women, as seen in the photo -- hit the streets, many barefoot and sloshing in the rain. Because of the iron grip that the military rulers have on Burma and their zero tolerance for dissent, the demonstrations have a high probability of ending in violence as they have in years past. But it is truly amazing to watch these brave Burmese rise up and reach for every human's inalienable right: freedom.

UPDATE: It's Monday in Myanmar, and the protests have jumped to 100,000 strong, with civilians joining 20,000 marching monks!

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- playing with his missiles at a parade in Tehran today, above -- said he wanted to lay a wreath at ground zero to pay his respects to the victims of 9-11. So now he's spending his last day before flying to the United Nations at a parade festooned with "Down with the U.S." and "Down with Israel" signs, and generally spewing the same sort of rhetoric that would make Osama bin Laden's buttons burst with pride.

Unfortunately, some Americans still think it's cool to give this Holocaust-denier guy who wants to wipe out Israel a platform from which to bloviate on his trip to the U.S. Also unfortunately, such a tendency to give a platform to the worst of the worst is usually found in academia. And Ahmadinejad will be welcomed with open arms -- and, thankfully, by throngs of protesters -- Monday at Columbia University, where I suspect his speech will be titled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

Said one student of the visit:

"He's a leader of a large nation, and what he says is important, even if it's wrong."

Makes me wonder what kind of reception Adolf Hitler would truly receive if he were alive today. Would he get a platform because he's the leader of a large nation, and would his wrong wrong wrong views still be considered important?

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fidel Castro is still on a mission to prove that he still alive, donning his super-sassy track suit and claiming he's currently breathing by quoting Euro values, as I still envision Andrew McCarthy propping up his arm for a wave. Fidel's reason for not gracing us with his presence more often? Because grooming is so time consuming.

Posted by Bridget Johnson at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)