Just exactly who is Erik Prince anyway?

Okay, we all now know that Erik Prince (photo on the left) is the multi-multi-millionaire and right-wing Christian Evangelist (ultra-conservative Roman Catholic) who founded Blackwater--and the Prince Group--more than a decade ago. But just what exactly is his goal and is it really in the best interests of the United States of America to have the likes of Erik Prince's mercenary forces replacing the United States Marines in sensitive combat roles in Iraq?

When President Dwight Eisenhower, a distinguished general and Supreme Allied Commander in his own right, and yes, a conservative Republican of a past era, ended his term of office as President, he warned the American people in his farewell address of "the dangers of the military-industrial complex." Blackwater today, if anything, is a model of this exact relationship, and I think we should now seriously realize that President Eisenhower's warning was all too real.

Add Mike Huckabee's commentary during the debate two weeks ago with his firm stand against abortion to understand why I LIKE MIKE! Go Mike go!!

Mike Huckabee at least has an understandable rationale for continuing the surge and staying in Iraq. This picture touches my heart because it was taken in a prison and I fully know the needs of the inmates in most prisons around our country.

Consider the following response during the debate two weeks ago:

MR. HUCKABEE: We have to continue the surge. And let me explain why, Chris. When I was a little kid, if I went into a store with my mother, she had a simple rule for me. If I picked something off the shelf of the store and I broke it, I bought it.

I learned don't pick something off the shelf I can't afford to buy.

Well, what we did in Iraq, we essentially broke it. It's our responsibility to do the best we can to try to fix it before we just turn away because something is at stake. Senator McCain made a great point, and let me make this clear. If there's anybody on this stage that understands the word honor, I've got to say Senator McCain understands that word -- (applause, cheers) -- because he has given his country a sacrifice the rest of us don't even comprehend. (Continued applause.)

And on this issue, when he says we can't leave until we've left with honor, I 100 percent agree with him because, Congressman, whether or not we should have gone to Iraq is a discussion that historians can have, but we're there. We bought it because we broke it. We've got a responsibility to the honor of this country and to the honor of every man and woman who has served in Iraq and ever served in our military to not leave them with anything less than the honor that they deserve. (Cheers, applause.)

MR. HUME: [to Ron Paul] Go ahead. You wanted to respond? He just addressed you; you go ahead and respond. (Continued applause.)

REP. PAUL: The American people didn't go in. A few people advising this administration, a small number of people called the neoconservative hijacked our foreign policy. They're responsible, not the American people. They're not responsible. We shouldn't punish them. (Cheers, applause.)

MR. HUCKABEE: Congressman, we are one nation. We can't be divided. We have to be one nation under God. That means if we make a mistake, we make it as a single country, the United States of America, not the divided states of America. (Cheers.)


For the record, like my brother Richard in Connecticut, I do not agree with the surge, nor that we should stay indefinitely in Iraq because "we broke it." Nonetheless, it's good to hear a rationale that makes at least some sense coming from at least one of the "stay-in-Iraq" Republicans.

Your Baby Bonds" idea would be more palatable if you also stood firmly against aborting almost as many as are being born each year, Hillary!

Your Baby Bonds" idea (actually a Time Magazine idea) would be more palatable if you also stood firmly against aborting almost as many as are being born each year, Hillary! Yeh, I too like the idea of having $5000 (or more) set aside for each child's ultimate education or vocational training, Hillary; however, I also note that almost as many children are being aborted in America as are being born. Do you plan on having the increasing abortion rate ultimately "pay for" this (otherwise great) idea?

I truly believe that you care deeply for our underprivileged population, Hillary, and the children especially. Still, I also truly believe that you are mistaken in believing that a woman's "right to choose" extends to her right to choose to kill the human being living in her womb.

That aside for the moment though, I do hope that your "baby bonds" idea has legs and ultimately becomes the law of the land.

Since about 4 million babies are born each year, the cost (per year) of your program would be about $20 billion. I suggest that we stop the American involvement in Iraq (and elsewhere) to pay for this marvelous program.

Mediawingnuts (like his brother Richard in Connecticut) is a Pro-life (consistently and in all aspects) progressive thinking Democrat, I guess.

Twelve Year Old Takes on GWB

Graeme Frost -- Twelve Year Old Will Respond Tomorrow to Likely Presidential Veto

A twelve year old boy who received life-saving care through U.S.-subsidized health insurance will speak for the Democrats tomorrow in their response to President George W. Bush's weekly radio address. yup, the Democrats chose Graeme Frost of Baltimore, instead of one of their typical talking heads to argue for expansion of a kids' health-care program. This might be the camel that breaks the straw's back if President Bush truly goes ahead with his promised veto. It's one thing for him to accidentally go into war and cause thousands of American soldiers to die; it's quite another to turn on our nation's children. Which Republican candidates actually choose to support the President against our children will be an interesting political drama, I think.

Just guessing of course, but I predict that Fred Thompson and John McCain will choose to side with the President against the American kids. The Iraq War simply needs the money more, in their opinions, I believe. Giuliani and Romney, on the other hand, will throw their weight behind the kids and their need for health care, I believe ... but we'll just have to wait and see ...

My brother Richard in Connecticut sees the Republicans holding the White House in 2008 .... according to some goofball book!

Yes indeed, look inside!

My brother Richard in Connecticut and I can even be reading the same book (or at least the list on page three) simultaneously over the phone and manage to disagree as to which political party will win in 2008. He says "true" to six of the thirteen "key" questions with two that are clearly "don't knows" at this time, and I saw seven--maybe eight--clear falses. What this means is that he (brother Richard in New haven) sees the Republicans winning in a close election in 2008 and I see the Democrats (yes, also close) winning.

The author of The Keys to the White House (a political historian of questionable noteworthiness whose name is Allan J. Lichtman) uses and/or used something called kernel discriminant function analysis to come up with thirteen "keys" that essentially sum up the likelihood of an incumbent party's likelihood of holding on to the White House to ... (trumpets, please) the performance of the party during the previous four or eight years.

Aside from the obvious comment that that is as obvious as our lack of success in Iraq, his "keys" are ambiguous at best. They are a little like a list of some not-so-obvious--but mildly elusive--factoids that are sure to pop up in any such perusal of every election from 1860 through 1980. That is, the book might be summed up as a short read that, in the final analysis, simply says that the campaigning is for naught--it's the manner of governance by the party in party that dictates the results of elections.

Tell that to Al Gore and the lawyers/courts that put GWB into the White House back in 2000! The real "keys" are probably in those damnable chads and our antiquated electoral College System. If I read the book correctly (and I've only really begun to read the entire book beyond about the fourth chapter), all Mr. Bush would have to do to put his party into the White House for four more years is to end the occupation in Iraq and paint Rudolf Giuliani Charismatic Chartreuse.

OWOTO, the book does seem to be an enjoyable read and just might be good for the entire world if the likes of Mr. Bush picks it up on some long cold night this winter.

Oh yes, according to my brother, the "keys" have correctly predicted the winner of every election since 1996 (at least the three since the book was written) and are likely to support my brother's view that the Republicans are a likely winner in 2008. Then again, I came up with seven "falses" to the "key" questions and that would mean a Democrat will win.

See? It's all in how you answer certain ambiguously stated questions.

Bush may not be the brightest light on the Christmas Tree, but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must think we all are about as intelligent as beach balls ...

Does President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad truly believe that the Holocaust was a "myth"? Does President Bush really believe that Iraq and Saddam Hussein really attacked us on 9-11? Well, at least the documented evidence (those Germans are pretty good note-takers) for the Holocaust exceeds President Bush's evidence for Saddam's threat to the U.S. I'd put my money on President Bush in a fair debate between himself and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Hellfire, I'd pay good money to attend a debate between these two clowns ... and a chance to see Bush actually "win one for the Gipper" for a change ... without hanging chads and a Supreme Court to prop him up.

But one way or the other, at least the United States of America stood up for free speech and let MA have his day at Columbia University.

Hell! For $14,500 per month, I might join the 180,000 American contractors in Iraq ... numerically more than the number of U.S. troops there!

Word out today is that the United States of America has contracted for 180,000 persons in Iraq--larger than its uniformed fighting force and responsible for a such a broad range of duties that our "uniformed" forces might not be able to operate without its private-sector partners. These persons work under a huge number of federal contracts to provide security, gather intelligence, build roads, forge a financial system, and transport needed supplies in a country the size of California. The Pentagon states that we have 163,000 uniformed troops there alongside the 180,000 contractors.

At $14,500 per month take-home pay per person (that's $174,000 per year for those who survive a year), someone is making big dough in all of this besides the contract workers. What is the mark-up, I wonder? That number is still classified, it seems ...

Of course, the Iraqis have suddenly become disenchanted with our contract forces as the contract workers' "security" roles have put them in the position of killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians--presumably accidentally, although our State Department is now looking into the various incidents more carefully. Not just the "enemy combatants" will be looking for those Habeas Corpus rights filibustered away (again) by the Senate today.

More on this to come, I'm sure. I posted something on Blackwater Corporation's role in this only a couple of days ago.,

No chance for the grave to be reopened this year, I'm afraid ...

Yeh, the bill to restore Habeas Corpus actually "passed" in the Senate with six votes to spare, but a Republican and Lieberman filibuster managed to deep six it again for another session. Fifty-six votes just aren't enough to overcome the 60 needed to resurrect one of the fundamental "writs" (rights) of the American justice system.

They couldn't even get it to go to the President tied to a military funding bill.

Sad--especially for a body of persons who swore to uphold the Constitution ...

But then, maybe not as sad as the turning over of our fighting in Iraq to corporate "soldiers" under the banner of Blackwater Corporation.

Since when does the United States Marine Corps need a private company (Blackwater) to protect it from our enemies?

Some of the United States of America's Blackwater Corporation Fighters

With a price tag of 800 million dollars, Blackwater is/was our largest mercenary army in Iraq. And to think I was beginning to think that our forces were winning at least the ground battle ... on their own. The "is/was" verb is because it looks like the Blackwater Army doesn't/didn't have the discipline and honor as do our United States Marines ... and our soldiers, sailors and airmen from the other services who have fought and died in Iraq, albeit under the protection of Blackwater and several other smaller security firms.

As of today, Blackwater is being charged with the murder of Iraqi civilians and is being ordered out of the country by the Iraqi Government. This is perhaps the most shocking and disgusting revelation yet to have come out of our Iraq invasion and occupation.

To be sure, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is twising Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's arm (and head) to try to turn this decision around, but Mediawingnuts is wondering ... why aren't we insisting upon the removal of private mercenary armies from Iraq ourselves? Isn't that one of our gripes about the non-Iraqi al-Qaeda fighters hidden among the Sunnis?

At least Henry Waxman announced today that he will launch an investigation into the incidents as well, calling such killing "an unfortunate demonstration of the perils of excessive reliance on private security contractors."

Amen!


A sad commentary ... click on the book's jacket to read the full cover material

If not a true "conspiracy," at least a cover-up, don't you think?

Partial transcript from Anderson Cooper 360 Show on CNN on September 12, 2007:

On now to one of the eeriest moments amid the carnage of 9/11. A mysterious plane was seen flying right over the president's residence. Even some CNN staffers saw it. To this day it has never been officially explained.

Tonight, chief national correspondent John King has new details about this great 9/11 mystery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Today, six years after 9/11, a mystery endures about just what happened in the skies over the White House that terrible day. A plane flew right over it, but why, and what was it? For conspiracy theorists, the image is a gold mine.



Go back to that morning. Suddenly, an orderly evacuation of the White House turned hectic. In New York, the Twin Towers had collapsed. There was word of an explosion at the Pentagon.

And then Secret Service warnings of another plane still on course for Washington. It appeared overhead just before 10 a.m., a four- engine jet banking slowly in the nation's most off-limits airspace. On the White House grounds and the rooftop, a nervous scramble.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: About ten minutes ago there was a white jet circling overhead. Now, you generally don't see planes in the area over the White House. That is restricted airspace. No reason to believe that this jet was there for any nefarious purposes, but the Secret Service was very concerned, pointing up at jet in the sky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING (voice-over): And still today, no one will offer an official explanation of what we saw.

Two government sources familiar with the incident tell CNN it was a military aircraft. They say the details are classified.

This comparison of the CNN video and an official Air Force photo suggests the mystery plane is among the military's most sensitive aircraft, an Air Force E-4B. Note the flag on the tail, the stripe around the fuselage, and the telltale bubble just behind the 747 cockpit area.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE: There are many commercial versions of the 747, obviously, that look similar, but I don't think any of them that have the communications pod like the E-4, the Air Force E-4 does behind the cockpit.

KING: The E-4b is a state of the art flying command post, built and equipped for one reason: to keep the government running no matter what, even in the event of a nuclear war, the reason it was nicknamed the doomsday plane during the Cold War.

SHEPPERD: They exercise this type of thing all of the time, and they simply don't talk about it. So it doesn't surprise me that they -- that they are very closed-mouthed about it.



KING: Ask the Pentagon, and it insists this is not a military aircraft, and there is no mention of it in the official report of the 9/11 Commission.

Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton says he has a vague recollection of someone mentioning a mystery plane, but staffers who looked into it never raised it as a relevant issue.

LEE HAMILTON, CO-CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: When you're conducting a major investigation, you get thousands of things that come at you. You can't possibly sort through them all. This never rose to the level of a discussion within the commission.

KING: The sum: the lack of any official explanation feeds an ominous conspiracy.

This is from an online discussion about the plane on the web site 911blogger.com. "I have always thought these planes were exactly that, mission control for the 9/11 attack on our country."

The 9/11 Commissioner co-chairman Hamilton calls such talk ludicrous.

HAMILTON: We, of course, heard the conspiracy theories about the president ordered the attack and the Defense Department was involved. We saw absolutely no evidence of that.

KING: But six years later, the Pentagon, the Secret Service and the FAA all say they, at least for public consumption, have no explanation of the giant plane over the president's house just as the smoke began to rise across the river at the Pentagon.

John King, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Interesting.

Yes, Anderson, very interesting indeed. Isn't it about time that someone explained to CNN and the rest of us exactly what was happening on 9/11/2001? Migod, our President constantly uses 9/11 as the reason that we have spent the lives of more than 3700 of our men and women in Iraq to depose one of Osama bin Laden's "infidel" enemies--although no one will miss Saddam Hussein much anyway. Don't we deserve at least a mention of the "mysteries" of 9/11 in the 9/11 Commission's voluminous report?

Watching the Anderson Cooper 360 news program last week, and hearing about the denial of the plane from the Pentagon, leaves at least some room for suspicion, don't you think? That plane certainly resembles the Air Force E-4B, and so it has to be asked why it was there, and why are they denying it.

Its definately interesting--and its even more interesting to me, that a main stream news network would even mention this and cite the above story as "new details" (quote-unquote from Anderson Cooper) six full years later.

Something is rotten in Denmark and now it ain't just us "nutty" conspiracy theorists who are questioning our Government ... as of this week.

Thanks, Anderson!



Stay tuned.

I see a portrait emerging ... as Pentagon interest is focusing on Iran as the next "target" ...

Reports coming from both the Pentagon and (of all places) Fox News indicate that US officials are considering a military assault on Iran's Islamic regime. This, of course comes after the recent decision by Germany to withhold support for new sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to heed international calls to halt nuclear work. In trying to grasp the Middle Eastern crisis, as every thinking person knows, it is good to keep on eye on oil. The motives for Western actions in the Middle East have always had to do with oil.

"Mission Accomplished" hero, Air Force One Commander ... High Noon cowboy. All that's needed in the portrait are a few B-2 bombers and some nukes ...

Maybe those Presidential polls that show the Democrats winning in 2008 are a bit premature. A senior Bush administration official told Fox that "everyone in town" was discussing the costs and benefits of a military assault on Iran that was likely to unfold within the next eight to ten months, well before the November 2008 presidential elections.

The hanging of Saddam Hussein was only a prelude to Bush's final and lasting legacy--"the final solution," so to speak. Is it possible that the White House sees its place in history in the ultimate destruction of the Persian Empire (a.k.a. Iran and its leaders the Ayatollahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad)?

Some troops will be home before Christmas ...

I watched our President this evening as he told us, "The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is 'return on success' -- the more successful we are, the more American troops can return home!"

And I continue to ask exactly where in God's name he thinks we are truly headed in the Middle East?

I thought I heard a buzzing sound, but didn't notice anything unusual ...

Nothing really much to post about today, but a friend sent me a picture he took of me while we were visiting Mount Rainier on one of those weekends away from Shelton (the "school" I attended) and I happened to notice that one of the clouds behind me appears to have been of an unusual shape ...

Is it possible that Hillary and Barack have seen the latest Republican polls ....

Is it just possible that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are reading the same poll reports that I am reading today?

Rudy and Fred in a virtual tie as of today ...

The two front-running Republicans for the 2008 Presidential nomination are running neck and neck as of today. Rudy Giuliani (above left) is leading Fred Thompson (shown on the right) 28% to 27% according to today's CNN polls. Although Fred appears more presidential and has the deeper voice, the Larry Craig wing of the party still leans towards (no pun intended) Rudy, I think.

Introducing latest grandson ... the latest member of the family ...

Li'l Gabriel James

Yup! Gabriel has "broken through" (a Cesarean birth after all was said and 'done'). My son, James and his lovely wife, Leah, are now the proud parents of little Gabriel James who arrived at 12:34 pm on Friday, September 7, 2007 weighing exactly seven pounds. Another cutie joins the growing number of grandkids.

Repeating ...

It's a Boy!
Friday, September 7, 2007
12:34 pm
7 lbs 0 oz

Dr. Ron Paul has rekindled the spirit of conservative, constitutional thinking like no one since ...

Many of you may have watched the Republican debate earlier this week, and undoubtedly wondered why there has been scant mention of it in the press ... make that NO MENTION OF IT HERE IN THE NEWSPAPERS IN MY LITTLE CORNER OF THE COUNTRY!!!

Well, thanks to a little prodding from my brother Richard in Connecticut, I was able to see a rerun of the Hannity & Colmes Show that ran on Fox News after the debate. I simply went to sleep after the debate, satisfied that Dr. Ron Paul had cleared the air on the matter of the illegal and dishonest nature of the war and occupation of Iraq. At least Mike Huckabee gave the best defense of our slogging on in what John McCain called a "Failed Iraq War" earlier yet in the debate--before the subject of foreign policy was even touched on formally by the moderators.

Of course, what I saw was the following



and it got even better (as regards the numbers) as the show continued from the moment when the above photo of a TV screen was snapped.

Ron Paul won the debate hands down and, interestingly, even the largest of the current polling report websites has stayed silent on the debate--obviously not knowing what to enter on their website when a couple of "third-tier" fellows (Dr. Ron Paul and Governor Mike Huckabee) stole the show, and the thunder from all of the others on the stage.

Even the John Birch Society managed to poke its head out of the ground and declare that Ron Paul is the only "true conservative" among the candidates of either major political party. I heard on Fox News (Channel 168 on XM-Radio) that most of Barry Goldwater's living relatives are supporting Ron Paul for the nomination.

It's clear that the '08 Presidential Race took a decidedly new turn during this past week, thanks to the heated exchange that was allowed to take place in front of millions of television viewers when Dr. Ron Paul and Gov. Mike Huckabee (two evangelical Christians, on top of all else) argued over the efficacy of George Bush's Iraq War. They both agreed that it was a mistake to have gotten involved in the first place, but disagreed on exactly whose task it is to "fix" what we had "broken" (to use Mike Huckabee's words).

But Mediawingnuts hopes that Governor Huckabee, will read the ugly statistics flowing from the Iraq War and realize that there have been between 600,000 and 1 million deaths overall in Iraq since the first shock and awe assault--not including more than 3700 of our own soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. This is according to studies from organizations such as Johns Hopkins University and European think tanks. And oh yes, Governor Huckabee, it should also be mentioned that Cheney's Halliburton cronies have profited over the billion dollar mark since the nation was invaded.

I truly believe that we can assume that Dr. Ron Paul is in this race for more than winning ... he's in it to save what still remains of Republican Party "honor" and maybe, just maybe ... to save a great number of Iraqis and Americans from certain death in the months and years ahead. (And yes, maybe he can win the Republican nomination along the way, although that is surely a long-shot.)

Go Ron, go! Yes, go get those Neocon bastards and nail them to the cross of truth and righteousness!

Is it just for laughs ... or is Fed Thompson really in this thing for the duration?

Fred Thompson tells Jay Leno he's a candidate

Well, if the number of hits on and the numbers and dollar amount of Internet-generated campaign contributions from his website alone are any gauge, he's in this thing ... and in it with the likelihood of grabbing the nomination from out of the hands of the so-called "darlings" of the party in record time. Watch for him to be at the top of the polls within two months--or less! He's certainly not my favorite Republican, but I know a winner when I see one. And besides, although my less-than-knowledgeable viewpoint means nada, the barbs tossed his way at the recent debate suggest that the other Republican candidates are shaking in their boots--except Ron Paul, of course, who correctly sees Thompson as "diluting" the pro-war gaggle of paunchy old men who stand 180 degrees opposite of Dr. Paul.

Still, his (Fred Thompson's) very astute choice of staying a million miles from the Republican debates (until now) and sitting opposite Jay Leno as he made his announcement, is the last in a series of marvelous and calculated decisions by Mr. Thompson. Personally, I thought that his airing a political commercial entitled "Debate" both before and during the Republican Debate was the icing on the cake. The only question now is, who will he choose to run with him? Maybe Mike Huckabee will be on the ticket after all.


(A few months ago) Fred Thompson tells Jay Leno he might someday be a candidate

To be or not to be .... that INDEED is the question ...

Senator Larry Craig ... To be or not to be ...

"To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep"

It's worth reading this soliloquy in its entirety ... only Shakespeare could possibly have painted the sad and helpless position of Senator Larry Craig in powerful, yet straightforward, language.

He and his family need our prayers, not our continuing barbs and snickers.

I surely apologize for my own guilt in this continuing activity of character assassination.

First one "Craig" and then another two day's later. Me? I'll take the second "Craig" hands down (no pun intended) !!!

Craig Venter--all six billion-plus letters of his DNA map!

How this is an accomplishment that beats Senator Larry Craig (R. Idaho) and his tap dance in a men's room stall hands down (no pun intended).

Most of you might not be aware that an American scientist made history over the past week by being the first person to have his entire DNA map published--all six billion characters of it! Like Senator Larry Craig, Craig Venter is totally (and I mean totally) out there to be seen by friends and enemies alike to peruse--if they have the patience and years to peruse six billion characters! It's been called the "ultimate autobiography" by at least one publication (The Ottawa Citizen) and might suggest that Mr. Venter has an ego the size of Fred Thompson's. But not so, say the scientists who decoded his genome. They see the publication as furthering genetics in general and the field of personalized genomics in particular.

As proof, the reports state that although it cost Dr. Venter $10 million to have his genome sequenced, the cost today would only be about (roughly) $100,000.

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, and television's Larry King are among the notables who have signed up to have their genomes sequenced by companies that say they can do the job for $100,000.

And for the rest of us ... in another ten years or less, the cost will have dropped to about $1000 or even lower.

Way to go, Craig!

The United States of America (in the eyes of an Iraqi child)

How often do you walk out your front door wondering "will I die today?" Besides seeing images such as those shown in the previous posting just after an air raid onto your village, you have the enduring image of the tools of war, such as the one above. Can you see Jesus in that image?

How do persons of power (e.g., the White House, Congress, senior officers in our military) sit idly by and watch their television sets while the carnage continues? Will there be any benefit to all of what the children of Iraq have to see daily? Well yes, I suppose, for those who are profiting from the war and now have fat military contracts. Yes, for them, life is just fine.

Yes also for the Neocons in our government who see naught but American power in the above photograph and had been salivating at launching this war for all of the years Of the Clinton presidency through about March 2003. And my brother Richard in Connecticut nor I have to remind you that "power" is spelled P-O-W-E-R ... or more clearly spelled O-I-L !!!

Being Pro-Life (opposed to abortion in most instances) and being opposed to the Iraq occupation are entirely consistent ...

This "fetus" is a human being!

These Iraqi children are human beings!

This aborted fetus had been a human being!


These Iraq children (after a bombing raid) had been laughing, loving, wonderful young human beings!

I wonder exactly how many times Jesus repeated the following verses ... certainly, again and again to those disciples who followed him from village to village ... Hmmm ... do you suppose that maybe that's why they put His words in red in so many of our Bibles?

Mt 5:44 "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

Lu 6:27 "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also."

Lu 6:35 "But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked."

Mt 5:39 "But I say to you, Do not make use of force against an evil man; but to him who gives you a blow on the right cheek let the left be turned."

Lu 6:37 "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;

Lu 12:22 "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat, nor about your body, what you shall put on.

Mt 26:52 Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword, [scalpal, cluster bombs, whatever ...] back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword."

Mt 7:12 "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets."

What I don't understand is why Dr. Ron Paul is running at about 1% in the polls ...

Dr. Ron Paul ... Presidential candidate for 2008

Although Dr. Paul sides with the liberals on the issues surrounding the illegal Iraq occupation, his conservative credentials are more pristine (almost) than William F. Buckley's or Barry Goldwater's.

Indeed, if it weren't for his slightly abrasive demeanor, I'd probably select him over Mike Huckabee (my current favorite) myself. After all, he and I agree on just about every issue (okay, we disagree on gun rights) and he would surely have the international bankers (who are buying up America so that George Bush and the Fed can "save" our homes for us) and the Neocons shaking in their boots.

Ron Paul's commitment to the sanctity of human life goes beyond rhetoric and probably stems from his having been a medical doctor in a "previous life" (before politics). He is the person who sponsored H.R. 776, entitled the "Sanctity of Life Act of 2005." Had it passed, H.R. 776 would have recognized the personhood of all unborn babies by declaring that "human life shall be deemed to exist from conception." That bill also recognized the authority of each State to protect the lives of unborn children. In addition, H.R. 776 would have removed abortion from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, thereby nullifying the Roe v. Wade decision, and would have denied funding for abortion providers. Simply put, H.R. 776 would have ended abortion on demand. (It is more than interesting to me that none of the Religious Right's pet politicians, including George W. Bush, even bothered to support Dr. Paul's pro-life bill.)

A point worth noting is that Dr. Paul is known as "Dr. No" on the Hill for the reason that he has voted against every unconstitutional bill put forth by either the Democrats or the Neocon Republican clique.

His "Statement of faith" is worth reading for any of you who wonder just who is that maverick who's always way over on the end of the row at each of the Republican debates.