For a Kiss

conjuring up images of the past I yearn for
eyes of swirling life - hazelnut cosmos
look deeply into my soul each time I sleep
it is the future I turned my back on

fear and doubt draw their swords
into battle they go - love their casualty
hardened hearts still cry tears
weeping in silence behind frivolity's curtain

at a porcelain gallop you come - always
gentility arming your chivalry and passion
battle lines drawn you reach for your sword
victory is most ultimately thine my sweet

oh how i love thee

Dude Check This Little Girl

The Night Before Christmas - For Lawyers

Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter "the House") a general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not limited to, a mouse.

A variety of foot apparel, e.g. stocking, socks, etc., had been affixed by and around the chimney in said House in the hope and/or belief that St. Nick a.k.a. St. Nicholas a.k.a. Santa Claus (hereinafter "Claus") would arrive at sometime thereafter. The minor residents, i.e. the children, of the aforementioned House were located in their individual beds and were engaged in nocturnal hallucinations, i.e. dreams, wherein vision of confectionery treats, including, but not limited to, candies, nuts and/or sugar plums, did dance, cavort and otherwise appear in said dreams.

Whereupon the party of the first part (sometimes hereinafter referred to as "I"), being the joint owner in fee simple of the House with the party of the second part (hereinafter "Mamma"), and said Mamma had retired for a sustained period of sleep. (At such time, the parties were clad in various forms of headgear, e.g. kerchief and cap.)

Suddenly, and without prior notice or warning, there did occur upon the unimproved real property adjacent and appurtenant to said House, i.e. the lawn, a certain disruption of unknown nature, cause and/or circumstance. The party of the first part did immediately rush to a window in the House to investigate the cause of such disturbance. At that time, the party of the first part did observe, with some degree of wonder and/or disbelief, a miniature sleigh (hereinafter "the Vehicle") being pulled and/or drawn very rapidly through the air by approximately eight (8) reindeer. The driver of the Vehicle appeared to be and in fact was, the previously referenced Claus. Said Claus was providing specific direction, instruction and guidance to the approximately eight (8) reindeer and specifically identified the animal co-conspirators by name: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen (hereinafter "the Deer"). (Upon information and belief, it is further asserted that an additional co-conspirator named "Rudolph" may have been involved.)

The party of the first part witnessed Claus, the Vehicle and the Deer intentionally and willfully trespass upon the roofs of several residences located adjacent to and in the vicinity of the House, and noted that the Vehicle was heavily laden with packages, toys and other items of unknown origin or nature. Suddenly, without prior invitation or permission, either express or implied, the Vehicle arrived at the House, and Claus entered said House via the chimney. Said Claus was clad in a red fur suit, which was partially covered with residue from the chimney, and he carried a large sack containing a portion of the aforementioned packages, toys and other unknown items. He was smoking what appeared to be tobacco in a small pipe in blatant violation of local ordinances and health regulations.

Claus did not speak, but immediately began to fill the stocking of the minor children, which hung adjacent to the chimney, with toys and other small gifts. (Said items did not, however, constitute "gifts" to said minor pursuant to the applicable provisions of the U.S. Tax Code.) Upon completion of such task, Claus touched the side of his nose and flew, rose and/or ascended up the chimney of the House to the roof where the Vehicle and Deer waited and/or served as "lookouts." Claus immediately departed for an unknown destination.

However, prior to the departure of the Vehicle, Deer and Claus from said House, the party of the first part did hear Claus state and/or exclaim: "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!" Or words to that effect.

Vaya Con Dios

His eyes are far above my line of sight
But his smile reaches down to my tiny hands
I love him now - even when I cannot say
Words I have not learned

Time flows swiftly - His eyes draw ever nearer to my gaze
His hands grow ever smaller next to mine
His love - the one thing that doesn't change
As the shine wears from his smile

He has been waiting, knowing it will come
Patient for when it finally gets here
I always thought it would make it easier
Knowing when the darkness is coming for you

But now my life is but cloudy
It isn't here, but it comes
Ever so swiftly in time paused
Its shadows silently descends

His eyes do not meet mine - My gaze now drops far below the horizon
And perhaps they never shall they again
For peacefully he seems prepared
To go where I cannot follow

Gracefully the world stops spinning
Tears strike the dust to which he slowly returns;
Life remaining seems slower than a hearbeat
Quieter than an unsung song

Vaya con Dios

Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat © 2007 Ryan Parker

I never called Bill Belichick a genius,
Cause I remember when he coached the Browns,
He was such a failure up in Cleveland,
The franchise folded up and left the town,
I never said Tom Brady was a hero,
Cause I remember him at Michigan,
Bringing Gatorade to Brian Griese,
Except for garbage time when he got in,

Chorus
So wasn't it a little shady when this quarterback named Brady,
Suddenly became a mega star,
Wasn't it a bit confusing when this coach who's used to losing,
Earned the reputation that he's smart,
When you know which plays are coming, it can make a coach look cunning,
And make an average quarterback elite,
Cheating's how they got their glory, it's the true deceitful story,
Of Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat,

The tabloids say they've cheated on their girlfriends,
And someone should review their SATs,
The IRS should look into their taxes,
And their colleges should check out their degrees,
Mangini knew the tricks that they were using,
So he convinced the Jets to turn them in,
Cause he was getting sick and tired of losing,
To a team that has to cheat to win,

Chorus
But Brady's made a lot of money and he's scored a lot of honeys,
By showing off his championship rings,
Bill's been praised because he's clever, and called the greatest ever,
And lived with all the luxuries that brings,
But let's confiscate their Sony's, and expose them both as phonies,
And see how many teams that they can beat,
Some would say it won't be any, if it is, it won't be many,
Poor Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat,
No more lucky play selection, into proper blitz protection,
For Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat,
Cause cheating's how they got their glory, it's the true deceitful story,
Of Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat

FINALLY I'M OUT OF PENS! - No really, that's a GOOD thing :)

Ok I don't know if you guys remember this, but about three years ago, during October of my senior year in college, I wrote this blog post about my absurd pen and highlighter collection. You guys remember this? It went something to the tune I need to stop spending money on pens and highlighters when I see ones I want...I mean I probably had thousands of pens, hundreds of dollars worth I'm sure. It was the debater in me + the OCD in me. Basically how it would work, is that I would go to the store, see pens and think "Do I have a pen that color? No, ok well I guess I need THE WHOLE SET!" Or I'd be in class, and I would say to myself "Hmm...Middle Eastern Politics - this class is orange. Where is my orange pen?? IT'S GONE??? Ok well I can't write in my book with ANOTHER color so I guess I need another one. Whoops, I have to have pens that match so I guess I need a A WHOLE NEW SET of uniballs" [at$12 each , and no the thrill of using color-coded pens wasn't "priceless"]. So one day I said to myself, you my friend, are a consumer OUT OF CONTROL...so I vowed I would buy no more pens until I ran out.

So it has taken me about three years, that's right THREE YEARS to go through my bags of expensive pens and highlighters, and I've been able to roughly color-code law school anyway [hey, maybe remedies is Blue - baby blue to be exact - but not always the EXACT same shade of baby blue]. I had to buy a new set of pens at the beginning of this semester, and now today, the time has FINALLY come to buy new highlighters. I am at a loss.

Consumerism in check? - Now THAT'S priceless.

Remember Their Chains,

Miss Elizabeth Alvarez
SEEK JUSTICE
Isaiah 1:17

"Remember those in prison as though you were in prison with them, and those ill-treated as though you too felt their torment." Hebrews 13:3

How It Feels

These words are not my own, but they are penned as if they could have been. I cannot think of a better way to express myself, especially now, than these words...


I remember coming home from the killing fields of Rwanda and feeling a bit wounded by friends who seemed to have no interest in trying to understand where I had been and what I had seen. I doubt that I ever mentioned this to any of them. But I felt something of the shallowness of some of my friendships when, coming back fresh from an eye-witness experience of one of the most appalling events in human history, they did not express even ten minutes of curiosity about what I had seen. Given how unpleasant it all was, I really didn't blame them for their lack of inquiry. In fact, most of the time I didn't like talking about it very much.

But those closest relatives and friends who really wanted to know me wouldn't let me get away with keeping the experience to myself. They wanted to understand where I had been, what I had seen and how I had been touched. They knew that they could never understand the deepest part of me if they didn't have some understanding of the things I had seen.

Likewise if we really want to know God, we should know something about where he has been - and what it has been like for him to suffer with all those who are hurting and abused. No one will ever really know what it was like for me to interview all those orphaned massacre survivors in Rwanda or roll back a corpse in a Rwandan church and find the tiniest of skeletons under the remains of a mother who had tried to protect her baby with her own body. I would never expect people to totally understand. God doesn't expect this either. He knows that we can never comprehend the smallest fraction of the oppression and abuse he has had to witness. But we can know him better if we try to understand something about his character and experience as the God of compassion - the God who suffers with the victims of injustice.

If nothing else, it will help us understand why the God of justice hates injustice and wants it to stop. If we had to see it and hear it every day like our God does, we would hate it too. To understand where the God of compassion has been is to begin to understand God's passion for justice. Justice, for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is not a good idea, a noble aspiration, a theoretical satisfaction or an impersonal principle - it is his beating heart. He is the "man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering," who weeps with those who weep (Isaiah 53:3; John 11:33-35).

God's compassion for the victims of injustice extends to all people, all round the world, without distinction or favor. When it comes to loving the people of the world, God suffers under none of our limitations. He doesn't feel so limited in his resources of compassion that he must establish boundaries for his caring or hierarchies of people, races, communities or nations to love. Rather, as the psalmist writes, "The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed" (Psalm 103:6). Indeed God seeks to establish justice "to save all the afflicted of the land (Psalm 76:9).

-Gary Haugen
The Good News About Injustice

Sigh - FOR SHAME

The New York Times


October 4, 2007
Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN

This article is by Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.

The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil.

Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics.

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Wednesday that he would not comment on any legal opinion related to interrogations. Mr. Fratto added, “We have gone to great lengths, including statutory efforts and the recent executive order, to make it clear that the intelligence community and our practices fall within U.S. law” and international agreements.

More than two dozen current and former officials involved in counterterrorism were interviewed over the past three months about the opinions and the deliberations on interrogation policy. Most officials would speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the documents and the C.I.A. detention operations they govern.

When he stepped down as attorney general in September after widespread criticism of the firing of federal prosecutors and withering attacks on his credibility, Mr. Gonzales talked proudly in a farewell speech of how his department was “a place of inspiration” that had balanced the necessary flexibility to conduct the war on terrorism with the need to uphold the law.

Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney’s counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department’s independence.

The interrogation opinions were signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who since 2005 has headed the elite Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. He has become a frequent public defender of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program and detention policies at Congressional hearings and press briefings, a role that some legal scholars say is at odds with the office’s tradition of avoiding political advocacy.

Mr. Bradbury defended the work of his office as the government’s most authoritative interpreter of the law. “In my experience, the White House has not told me how an opinion should come out,” he said in an interview. “The White House has accepted and respected our opinions, even when they didn’t like the advice being given.”

The debate over how terrorist suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted the new measures without public debate or Congressional vote, choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of a handful of appointees.

The policies set off bruising internal battles, pitting administration moderates against hard-liners, military lawyers against Pentagon chiefs and, most surprising, a handful of conservative lawyers at the Justice Department against the White House in the stunning mutiny of 2004. But under Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Bradbury, the Justice Department was wrenched back into line with the White House.

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner’s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation techniques — the details remain secret — and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in “black sites” overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.

Douglas W. Kmiec, who headed that office under President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush and wrote a book about it, said he believed the intense pressures of the campaign against terrorism have warped the office’s proper role.

“The office was designed to insulate against any need to be an advocate,” said Mr. Kmiec, now a conservative scholar at Pepperdine University law school. But at times in recent years, Mr. Kmiec said, the office, headed by William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia before they served on the Supreme Court, “lost its ability to say no.”

“The approach changed dramatically with opinions on the war on terror,” Mr. Kmiec said. “The office became an advocate for the president’s policies.”

From the secret sites in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe where C.I.A. teams held Qaeda terrorists, questions for the lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters arrived daily. Nervous interrogators wanted to know: Are we breaking the laws against torture?

The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.

Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.

With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away.

“We were getting asked about combinations — ‘Can we do this and this at the same time?’” recalled Paul C. Kelbaugh, a veteran intelligence lawyer who was deputy legal counsel at the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center from 2001 to 2003.

Interrogators were worried that even approved techniques had such a painful, multiplying effect when combined that they might cross the legal line, Mr. Kelbaugh said. He recalled agency officers asking: “These approved techniques, say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature — can they be combined?” Or “Do I have to do the less extreme before the more extreme?”

The questions came more frequently, Mr. Kelbaugh said, as word spread about a C.I.A. inspector general inquiry unrelated to the war on terrorism. Some veteran C.I.A. officers came under scrutiny because they were advisers to Peruvian officers who in early 2001 shot down a missionary flight they had mistaken for a drug-running aircraft. The Americans were not charged with crimes, but they endured three years of investigation, saw their careers derailed and ran up big legal bills.

That experience shook the Qaeda interrogation team, Mr. Kelbaugh said. “You think you’re making a difference and maybe saving 3,000 American lives from the next attack. And someone tells you, ‘Well, that guidance was a little vague, and the inspector general wants to talk to you,’” he recalled. “We couldn’t tell them, ‘Do the best you can,’ because the people who did the best they could in Peru were looking at a grand jury.”

Mr. Kelbaugh said the questions were sometimes close calls that required consultation with the Justice Department. But in August 2002, the department provided a sweeping legal justification for even the harshest tactics.

That opinion, which would become infamous as “the torture memo” after it was leaked, was written largely by John Yoo, a young Berkeley law professor serving in the Office of Legal Counsel. His broad views of presidential power were shared by Mr. Addington, the vice president’s adviser. Their close alliance provoked John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, to refer privately to Mr. Yoo as Dr. Yes for his seeming eagerness to give the White House whatever legal justifications it desired, a Justice Department official recalled.

Mr. Yoo’s memorandum said no interrogation practices were illegal unless they produced pain equivalent to organ failure or “even death.” A second memo produced at the same time spelled out the approved practices and how often or how long they could be used.

Despite that guidance, in March 2003, when the C.I.A. caught Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, interrogators were again haunted by uncertainty. Former intelligence officials, for the first time, disclosed that a variety of tough interrogation tactics were used about 100 times over two weeks on Mr. Mohammed. Agency officials then ordered a halt, fearing the combined assault might have amounted to illegal torture. A C.I.A. spokesman, George Little, declined to discuss the handling of Mr. Mohammed. Mr. Little said the program “has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review” and “has helped our country disrupt terrorist plots and save innocent lives.”

“The agency has always sought a clear legal framework, conducting the program in strict accord with U.S. law, and protecting the officers who go face-to-face with ruthless terrorists,” Mr. Little added.

Some intelligence officers say that many of Mr. Mohammed’s statements proved exaggerated or false. One problem, a former senior agency official said, was that the C.I.A.’s initial interrogators were not experts on Mr. Mohammed’s background or Al Qaeda, and it took about a month to get such an expert to the secret prison. The former official said many C.I.A. professionals now believe patient, repeated questioning by well-informed experts is more effective than harsh physical pressure.

Other intelligence officers, including Mr. Kelbaugh, insist that the harsh treatment produced invaluable insights into Al Qaeda’s structure and plans.

“We leaned in pretty hard on K.S.M.,” Mr. Kelbaugh said, referring to Mr. Mohammed. “We were getting good information, and then they were told: ‘Slow it down. It may not be correct. Wait for some legal clarification.’”

The doubts at the C.I.A. proved prophetic. In late 2003, after Mr. Yoo left the Justice Department, the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, began reviewing his work, which he found deeply flawed. Mr. Goldsmith infuriated White House officials, first by rejecting part of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, prompting the threat of mass resignations by top Justice Department officials, including Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Comey, and a showdown at the attorney general’s hospital bedside.

Then, in June 2004, Mr. Goldsmith formally withdrew the August 2002 Yoo memorandum on interrogation, which he found overreaching and poorly reasoned. Mr. Goldsmith, who left the Justice Department soon afterward, first spoke at length about his dissenting views to The New York Times last month, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Six months later, the Justice Department quietly posted on its Web site a new legal opinion that appeared to end any flirtation with torture, starting with its clarionlike opening: “Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.”

A single footnote — added to reassure the C.I.A. — suggested that the Justice Department was not declaring the agency’s previous actions illegal. But the opinion was unmistakably a retreat. Some White House officials had opposed publicizing the document, but acquiesced to Justice Department officials who argued that doing so would help clear the way for Mr. Gonzales’s confirmation as attorney general.

If President Bush wanted to make sure the Justice Department did not rebel again, Mr. Gonzales was the ideal choice. As White House counsel, he had been a fierce protector of the president’s prerogatives. Deeply loyal to Mr. Bush for championing his career from their days in Texas, Mr. Gonzales would sometimes tell colleagues that he had just one regret about becoming attorney general: He did not see nearly as much of the president as he had in his previous post.

Among his first tasks at the Justice Department was to find a trusted chief for the Office of Legal Counsel. First he informed Daniel Levin, the acting head who had backed Mr. Goldsmith’s dissents and signed the new opinion renouncing torture, that he would not get the job. He encouraged Mr. Levin to take a position at the National Security Council, in effect sidelining him.

Mr. Bradbury soon emerged as the presumed favorite. But White House officials, still smarting from Mr. Goldsmith’s rebuffs, chose to delay his nomination. Harriet E. Miers, the new White House counsel, “decided to watch Bradbury for a month or two. He was sort of on trial,” one Justice Department official recalled.

Mr. Bradbury’s biography had a Horatio Alger element that appealed to a succession of bosses, including Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court and Mr. Gonzales, the son of poor immigrants. Mr. Bradbury’s father had died when he was an infant, and his mother took in laundry to support her children. The first in his family to go to college, he attended Stanford and the University of Michigan Law School. He joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where he came under the tutelage of Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater independent prosecutor.

Mr. Bradbury belonged to the same circle as his predecessors: young, conservative lawyers with sterling credentials, often with clerkships for prominent conservative judges and ties to the Federalist Society, a powerhouse of the legal right. Mr. Yoo, in fact, had proposed his old friend Mr. Goldsmith for the Office of Legal Counsel job; Mr. Goldsmith had hired Mr. Bradbury as his top deputy.

“We all grew up together,” said Viet D. Dinh, an assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003 and very much a member of the club. “You start with a small universe of Supreme Court clerks, and you narrow it down from there.”

But what might have been subtle differences in quieter times now cleaved them into warring camps.

Justice Department colleagues say Mr. Gonzales was soon meeting frequently with Mr. Bradbury on national security issues, a White House priority. Admirers describe Mr. Bradbury as low-key but highly skilled, a conciliator who brought from 10 years of corporate practice a more pragmatic approach to the job than Mr. Yoo and Mr. Goldsmith, both from the academic world.

“As a practicing lawyer, you know how to address real problems,” said Noel J. Francisco, who worked at the Justice Department from 2003 to 2005. “At O.L.C., you’re not writing law review articles and you’re not theorizing. You’re giving a client practical advice on a real problem.”

As he had at the White House, Mr. Gonzales usually said little in meetings with other officials, often deferring to the hard-driving Mr. Addington. Mr. Bradbury also often appeared in accord with the vice president’s lawyer.

Mr. Bradbury appeared to be “fundamentally sympathetic to what the White House and the C.I.A. wanted to do,” recalled Philip Zelikow, a former top State Department official. At interagency meetings on detention and interrogation, Mr. Addington was at times “vituperative,” said Mr. Zelikow, but Mr. Bradbury, while taking similar positions, was “professional and collegial.”

While waiting to learn whether he would be nominated to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Bradbury was in an awkward position, knowing that a decision contrary to White House wishes could kill his chances.

Charles J. Cooper, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel under President Reagan, said he was “very troubled” at the notion of a probationary period.

“If the purpose of the delay was a tryout, I think they should have avoided it,” Mr. Cooper said. “You’re implying that the acting official is molding his or her legal analysis to win the job.”

Mr. Bradbury said he made no such concessions. “No one ever suggested to me that my nomination depended on how I ruled on any opinion,” he said. “Every opinion I’ve signed at the Office of Legal Counsel represents my best judgment of what the law requires.”

Scott Horton, an attorney affiliated with Human Rights First who has closely followed the interrogation debate, said any official offering legal advice on the campaign against terror was on treacherous ground.

“For government lawyers, the national security issues they were deciding were like working with nuclear waste — extremely hazardous to their health,” Mr. Horton said.

“If you give the administration what it wants, you’ll lose credibility in the academic community,” he said. “But if you hold back, you’ll be vilified by conservatives and the administration.”

In any case, the White House grew comfortable with Mr. Bradbury’s approach. He helped block the appointment of a liberal Ivy League law professor to a career post in the Office of Legal Counsel. And he signed the opinion approving combined interrogation techniques.

Mr. Comey strongly objected and told associates that he advised Mr. Gonzales not to endorse the opinion. But the attorney general made clear that the White House was adamant about it, and that he would do nothing to resist.

Under Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Comey’s opposition might have killed the opinion. An imposing former prosecutor and self-described conservative who stands 6-foot-8, he was the rare administration official who was willing to confront Mr. Addington. At one testy 2004 White House meeting, when Mr. Comey stated that “no lawyer” would endorse Mr. Yoo’s justification for the N.S.A. program, Mr. Addington demurred, saying he was a lawyer and found it convincing. Mr. Comey shot back: “No good lawyer,” according to someone present.

But under Mr. Gonzales, and after the departure of Mr. Goldsmith and other allies, the deputy attorney general found himself isolated. His troublemaking on N.S.A. and on interrogation, and in appointing his friend Patrick J. Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case, which would lead to the perjury conviction of I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, had irreparably offended the White House.

“On national security matters generally, there was a sense that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal,” said one Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, expressed with particular force by Mr. Addington.

Mr. Comey provided some hints of his thinking about interrogation and related issues in a speech that spring. Speaking at the N.S.A.’s Fort Meade campus on Law Day — a noteworthy setting for the man who had helped lead the dissent a year earlier that forced some changes in the N.S.A. program — Mr. Comey spoke of the “agonizing collisions” of the law and the desire to protect Americans.

“We are likely to hear the words: ‘If we don’t do this, people will die,’” Mr. Comey said. But he argued that government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great institutions.

“It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say ‘no’ when it matters most,” he said. “It takes moral character. It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.”

Mr. Gonzales’s aides were happy to see Mr. Comey depart in the summer of 2005. That June, President Bush nominated Mr. Bradbury to head the Office of Legal Counsel, which some colleagues viewed as a sign that he had passed a loyalty test.

Soon Mr. Bradbury applied his practical approach to a new challenge to the C.I.A.’s methods.

The administration had always asserted that the C.I.A.’s pressure tactics did not amount to torture, which is banned by federal law and international treaty. But officials had privately decided the agency did not have to comply with another provision in the Convention Against Torture — the prohibition on “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment.

Now that loophole was about to be closed. First Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and then Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had been tortured as a prisoner in North Vietnam, proposed legislation to ban such treatment.

At the administration’s request, Mr. Bradbury assessed whether the proposed legislation would outlaw any C.I.A. methods, a legal question that had never before been answered by the Justice Department.

At least a few administration officials argued that no reasonable interpretation of “cruel, inhuman or degrading” would permit the most extreme C.I.A. methods, like waterboarding. Mr. Bradbury was placed in a tough spot, said Mr. Zelikow, the State Department counselor, who was working at the time to rein in interrogation policy.

“If Justice says some practices are in violation of the C.I.D. standard,” Mr. Zelikow said, referring to cruel, inhuman or degrading, “then they are now saying that officials broke current law.”

In the end, Mr. Bradbury’s opinion delivered what the White House wanted: a statement that the standard imposed by Mr. McCain’s Detainee Treatment Act would not force any change in the C.I.A.’s practices, according to officials familiar with the memo.

Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only conduct that “shocks the conscience” was unconstitutional, the opinion found that in some circumstances not even waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading, if, for example, a suspect was believed to possess crucial intelligence about a planned terrorist attack, the officials familiar with the legal finding said.

In a frequent practice, Mr. Bush attached a statement to the new law when he signed it, declaring his authority to set aside the restrictions if they interfered with his constitutional powers. At the same time, though, the administration responded to pressure from Mr. McCain and other lawmakers by reviewing interrogation policy and giving up several C.I.A. techniques.

Since late 2005, Mr. Bradbury has become a linchpin of the administration’s defense of counterterrorism programs, helping to negotiate the Military Commissions Act last year and frequently testifying about the N.S.A. surveillance program. Once he answered questions about administration detention policies for an “Ask the White House” feature on a Web site.

Mr. Kmiec, the former Office of Legal Counsel head now at Pepperdine, called Mr. Bradbury’s public activities a departure for an office that traditionally has shunned any advocacy role.

A senior administration official called Mr. Bradbury’s active role in shaping legislation and speaking to Congress and the press “entirely appropriate” and consistent with past practice. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Bradbury “has played a critical role in achieving greater transparency” on the legal basis for detention and surveillance programs.

Though President Bush repeatedly nominated Mr. Bradbury as the Office of Legal Counsel’s assistant attorney general, Democratic senators have blocked the nomination. Senator Durbin said the Justice Department would not turn over copies of his opinions or other evidence of Mr. Bradbury’s role in interrogation policy.

“There are fundamental questions about whether Mr. Bradbury approved interrogation methods that are clearly unacceptable,” Mr. Durbin said.

John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy’s top lawyer from 1997 to 2000, said he believed that the existence of legal opinions justifying abusive treatment is pernicious, potentially blurring the rules for Americans handling prisoners.

“I know from the military that if you tell someone they can do a little of this for the country’s good, some people will do a lot of it for the country’s better,” Mr. Hutson said. Like other military lawyers, he also fears that official American acceptance of such treatment could endanger Americans in the future.

“The problem is, once you’ve got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?” he asked.

How 'Bout Them Apples??

And you guys said I was crazy for going Mac...check out THIS link!!

Watch This Please

This music video was recorded this Summer by Fall Out Boy while I was in Northern Uganda - please support artists who support what we do.

Rwanda

Well all, I know that it has been some time since I have written, but you wouldn't believe how hard internet has been to come by for me. It is accessible enough here, but I'm somewhat limited by my mobility. Kampala is known here in Africa as the City of Seven Hills so you can imagine how that works for me.

Moving on...

Since I've written last so much has happened. I have been to Rwanda, and there I touched the graves of over 60 thousand people. I cannot even begin to tell you the totality of emotion that overwhelmed me there. I rode the bus from Kampala to Kigali for 11 hours, and let me tell you I was most definately ready to get off that bus when the time came.

We went to the Kigali to see the Rwandan Genocide Memorial there and I was speechless to say the least. I always used to ask myself, if genocide had a smell, what would it be? I think it would smell like indifference smells - like red dirt after a long rain. They say here in africa that the dirt is red because so much blood is shed here. As I looked out at the mass graves of the innocent I smelt the red dirt around me and knew that must have at least an ounce of truth to it.

What touched me more than the museum though I think has to be the woman i will call The Mourner. She works at one of the memorial churches in Rwanda, about a 30 minute drive out from Kigali. You drive out to see it because it's preserved just the way it was during tte genocide. It's everything a Church should never be - blood everywhere, shrapnal, and bones underneath foot. The Mourner didn't speak English, only her tribal language, and our guide spoke the tribal language, but only French and not English. So, our tour went something like this: She would talk to us in her lanugague, our guide would repeat it in French, and I would choke back tears as I had to explain in English that this wall we were looking at wasn't really brown - it was white. This wall we were looking at is what one sees after hundreds of babies have been tossed against it and their skulls have shattered.

She would speak, he would speak, and then I would speak

I would try to speak

of the Genociders tossing grenades through the doors of a church

of women being raped on the communion table

of husbands being forced to watch their wives defiled then killed

of children mutilated and tortured

of holy water spilt on the ground and trampled on

of the icon of the Virgin Mary shot because she too was a Tutsi, so say the Genociders.


She would cry, he would be sick, and I would turn and face my companions and say

These are the skulls of the babies - those holes and dents are from batallions

these are the coffins of the 40 thousand dead men women and children

this is the blood stained pew of a place of God and a place of worship

this is a scene that God loving and fearing people world-wide turned their backs on

Surely Jesus would care more about this happening in his house of worship than when he turned the tables of the money changers?

My heart is forever marked with the dirt on those graves, and my shirt stained with the tears of The Mourner - she knew me naught, nor could she understand me when I spoke, but when I cried, she came and cried with me.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, people of faith: where are we while these Church Massacres are happening world-wide?


What does it smell like - do you smell the dirt?

--
"Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy, now I will arise, says the Lord. I will set him in the safety for which he longs." - Psalm 12:5

I Will Sing

I Will Sing

I will sing for the meek
For those who pray with their very lives for peace
Though they're in chains for a higher call
Their mourning will change into laughter when the nations fall

In spirit poor
In mercy rich
They hunger for Your righteousness
Their hearts refined in the purity
Lord let me shine for them
Lord let me sing
Lord let me shine for them
Lord let me sing

- Rich Mullins

A Culture of Self Defense

April 18, 2007
Wanted: A Culture of Self-Defense
By Michelle Malkin

There's no polite way or time to say it: American colleges and universities have become coddle industries. Big Nanny administrators oversee speech codes, segregated dorms, politically correct academic departments and designated "safe spaces" to protect students selectively from hurtful (conservative) opinions -- while allowing mob rule for approved leftist positions (textbook case: Columbia University's anti-Minuteman Project protesters).

Instead of teaching students to defend their beliefs, American educators shield them from vigorous intellectual debate. Instead of encouraging autonomy, our higher institutions of learning stoke passivity and conflict-avoidance.

And as the erosion of intellectual self-defense goes, so goes the erosion of physical self-defense.

Yesterday morning, as news was breaking about the carnage at Virginia Tech, a reader e-mailed me a news story from last January. State legislators in Virginia had attempted to pass a bill that would have eased handgun restrictions on college campuses. Opposed by outspoken, anti-gun activists and Virginia Tech administrators, that bill failed.

Is it too early to ask: "What if?" What if that bill had passed? What if just one student in one of those classrooms had been in lawful possession of a concealed weapon for the purpose of self-defense?

If it wasn't too early for Keystone Katie Couric to be jumping all over campus security yesterday for what they woulda/coulda/shoulda done in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, and if it isn't too early for The New York Times editorial board to be publishing its knee-jerk call for more gun control, it darned well isn't too early for me to raise questions about how the unrepentant anti-gun lobbying of college officials may have put students at risk.

The back story: Virginia Tech had punished a student for bringing a handgun to class last spring -- despite the fact that the student had a valid concealed handgun permit. The bill would have barred public universities from making "rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a student who possesses a valid concealed handgun permit . . . from lawfully carrying a concealed handgun." After the proposal died in subcommittee, the school's governing board reiterated its ban on students or employees carrying guns and prohibiting visitors from bringing them into campus buildings.

Late last summer, a shooting near campus prompted students to clamor again for loosening campus rules against armed self-defense. Virginia Tech officials turned up their noses. In response to student Bradford Wiles's campus newspaper op-ed piece in support of concealed carry on campus, Virginia Tech Associate Vice President Larry Hincker scoffed:

"[I]t is absolutely mind-boggling to see the opinions of Bradford Wiles. . . . The editors of this page must have printed this commentary if for no other reason than malicious compliance. Surely, they scratched their heads saying, 'I can't believe he really wants to say that.' Wiles tells us that he didn't feel safe with the hundreds of highly trained officers armed with high powered rifles encircling the building and protecting him. He even implies that he needed his sidearm to protect himself . . ."

The nerve!

Hincker continued: "The writer would have us believe that a university campus, with tens of thousands of young people, is safer with everyone packing heat. Imagine the continual fear of students in that scenario. We've seen that fear here, and we don't want to see it again. . . . Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same."

Who's scratching his head now, Mr. Hincker?

Some high-handed commentators insist it's premature or unseemly to examine the impact of school rules discouraging students from carrying arms on campus. Pundit Andrew Sullivan complained that it was "creepy" to highlight reader e-mails calling attention to Virginia Tech's restrictions on student self-defense -- even as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence rushed to capitalize on the massacre to sign up new members and gather e-mail addresses for Million Mom March chapters. "We are outraged by the increase in gun violence in America, especially the recent shooting at Virginia Tech," reads the online petition. "Add your name to the growing list of people who are saying: 'Enough Is Enough!'"

Enough is enough, indeed. Enough of intellectual disarmament. Enough of physical disarmament. You want a safer campus? It begins with renewing a culture of self-defense -- mind, spirit and body. It begins with two words: Fight back.

Copyright 2007 Creators Syndicate Inc.

Blogs

Hey there! I just wanted to inform all of you of the cool thing I recently discovered:

THE CAST OF HOUSE ALL HAVE BLOGS.
YES THAT'S RIGHT
BLOGS.


Just what I needed during finals, no?

Church & State

So I've been thinking, it's easy conclude that the “church” and the “state” have independent spheres to operate in, and one does not control the other. This is true to the extent that there is no state sponsored church, nor is there a papal state. But what of the idea that when there is a disagreement between the “church” and the “state” we ought to keep in mind who holds the advantage in the tie-breaker: the state. Is this a reality - an insightful description of a society we ought not desire, but society as it stands nonetheless?
But should we even seek for the balance of power in government to be different? It would seem on face that Christians should disagree with the premise that the government ought to have last say on such disputes, because it would de facto translate into a weaker church. However, I believe the real issue goes much deeper.
Churches left to their own devices have historically followed society’s discriminatory practices - such as discrimination against the deaf and hearing impaired, migrant workers, and blacks and slaves, and the poor - and have often been among the last social institutions to jump on the bandwagon of tolerance and civil rights. So just because the state does not control the church doesn’t mean society does not influence the church. At the same time, our current political system makes allowances for special interest groups and individual voting across party lines. Within the current balance of power, if the state decides a dispute between it and the church in a manner that does not satisfy a congregation’s or a denomination’s expectations, the state does not close off other avenues within the political system for the group or individual to respond. There still remain the options of lobbying, voting, and protesting. But if we make the church the final arbitrator of these disputes, then we close off due process to individual members.
The “church” need not be viewed as just its own communal entity, but also as an aggregate of individual members. While the Supreme Court has already made clear that the separation of church and state prevents them from deciding doctrinal issues, it does not prevent them from preserving social norms of safety general public welfare. And even then, the state is really not the final decision maker on any novel dispute, because it is only requiring the church to be as safe as secular buildings. What happens when the church refuses to make its parking lot handicap accessible or to follow the Fire Marshal’s mandate for fire extinguishers? Due process is shut off to the victimized if the state cannot be the final decision-maker. While it is true one individual may move to a different church, a whole America full of people cannot be expected to endure sub-human treatment or to burn alive in a church that didn’t want to pay for smoke alarms.

Cell Phone vs. Bible

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like
we treat our cell phones?
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it as we traveled?
What if we used it in case of an emergency?
This is something to make you go ...hmm...where is my Bible?

Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don't ever have
to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already
paid the bill!

All For You

All For You
Sister Hazel

Finally I figured out,
But it took a long long time
Now there's a turnabout,
Maybe cause I'm tryin'
There's been times, I'm so confused
Down my road, will it lead to you?
Just can't turn and walk away

It's hard to say what it is I see in you
Wonder if I'll always be with you
Words can't say it, I can't do
Enough to prove, it's all for you

And I'd thought I seen it all,
Cause it's been a long long time
Oh bothered that we'll trip and fall,
Wonderin' if I'm alive
There's been times, I'm so confused
Down my road, will it lead to you?
I just can't turn, you walk away

Its hard to say what it is I see in you
Wonder if I'll always be with you
Words can't say, and I can't do
Enough to prove it's all for you

Rain comes pourin' down,
Fallin' from blue skies
Words give out a sound,
comin' from your eyes

Finally I figured out,
But it took a long long time
Oh now there's a turnabout,
Maybe cause I'm tryin'
There's been times, I'm so confused
Down my road, will it lead to you?
Just can't turn, you walk away

Its hard to say what it is I see in you
Wonder if I'll always be with you
Words can't say, I can't do
Enough to prove it's all for you

Well it's hard to say what it is I see in you
Wonder if I'll always be with you
Words can't say, I can't do
Enough to prove, it's all for you

Hard to say
Hard to say, it's all for you

Holocaust

I've never read something that so succinctly explained what I feel about the Holocaust, and why it just represents the extent to which men can be evil.

"One of the most important outcomes of the experience of World War II is the scale of human atrocity. The most visible, if not morally paralyzing, aspect of the atrocities of this period is capsulated in the term 'the Holocast.' The Holocaust, seen in the context of the World War II experience, provoked serious reappraisal of the adequacy and morality of the forms of human governance on a global basis. The Holocaust was an event involving a self-conscious policy on the part of the Nazi Herrenvolk to use the apparatus of state power to systematically extinguish whole groups of human beings on the basis of group labels of identity. It was a process facilitated by the technological capacity of an industrial state waging an industrial form of total war. Hidden under the veil of political and judicial sovereignty, the Holocaust represented complete denial of people's right to existence, subject to Nazi dominance. A form of governance based on apparently limitless sovereignty it raised a profound question about the fundamental rights of persons caught in the web of sovereign omnipotence."

-Winston P. Nagan & Vivile F. Rodin
Racism, Genocide, and Mass Murder: Toward a Legal Theory About Group Deprivations

It's About Time!

So this is my preacher back in Abilene. This video is HILARIOUS for those of you who get the CoC jokes :-)

What Would A Human RIghts Theorist Do?

In God and the Constitution I read that politics is actually far more entrenched in a Christian ethic now than we realize, and that there is a place for a human rights theology within that ethic. This leads me to wonder, what exactly a foreign policy guided by this ethic would look like.
The analysis is made, when discussing the Cain & Able story, that all injustices that go unanswered appeal directly to God. However, as an intermediate step to this appeal, after the covenant with Noah and all creation, men were to exercise a judicial function and to protect rights. So what happens when the judicial system of a state fails? What exactly does the role of the Christian government to intervene and protect look like? Is this theology mean to imply that the existence of a judicial system of any kind, no matter how ill-equipped, represents the human responsibility to maintain justice? So for example, if a country like say the Philippines, is incapable of providing a higher level of justice then their current infrastructure allows, do we just chalk that up to human development and allow their justice system to develop as it will? Do we, in other words, accept this lacking justice system as a good faith effort toward intervening on behalf of the oppressed? Or, do we assume that it is our duty to ENSURE that all cries of oppression are met with justice?
Or, do we say that the unsuccessful efforts of other nations to fight injustice represent an example of a cry to God, and that God’s intervention and answer is the use of human servants to carry the day [much like the people in Egypt cried out, God speaks to Moses, Moses and Aaron go with God’s protection]?
And if we decide that we must intervene when justice systems fail to meet a specific standard of justice, how do we determine what standard will govern our interventions? Do all justice systems which persecute Christians require intervention? What about those which persecute women? Homosexuals? Are all justice systems which allow detention without access to a lawyer to be condemned, unless they are American military tribunals? From what text shall we draw this standard?
Additionally, if we have an obligation to fight back against unrighteous treatment, where does that belong in a hierarchy of rights? Do we intervene to provide justice as a foreign policy? Can that be allowed to trump other foreign policy objectives?
What about a situation like the Darfur or the situation in Northern Uganda? If I am a Christian subscribing to a human rights ethic somewhat like the one we’ve discussed in this class [as for instance seen in God and the Constitution] what do I do about the Darfur? Do I say, for instance, that I have a duty as a Christian to use the resources at my disposal to answer cries of injustice? Does this obligation trump, for instance any domestic obligations I may have to my constituents?

Eyah asher Eyah

Moses then said to God, `Look, if I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The god of your ancestors has sent me to you,” and they say to me, “What is his name?” what am I to tell them?

God said to Moses, `I am who I am’.
-Exodus 3:13-14

Is a human rights framework an inherently religious creation, or can it be conceived absent Christianity? This question does not, I believe, evoke a need for an intense discussion of complicated cosmologies. Instead, it simply leads us backwards, watching a flower bloom in reverse to the original question of life on earth [and everywhere else]: is God the beginning and end of all? Is Yahweh the Alpha and the Omega?
The Psalmists tell us that God is known by His justice. And we are given the responsibility as humans, to live a life of stewardship, as it says in Genesis 1:28: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’”
When the Queen of Sheba hears of the fame of King Solomon and comes to see him with her own eyes she says to him: “Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in your and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness.” I Kings 10:9. And what might this justice - the Lord’s justice - look like? In Psalm 72, the writer asks God to “Endow the king with your justice, O God,...He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.” Psalm 72:1,4.
What is it exactly that God is rescuing his children from? The terror from who’s hands God will snatch his children is not unlike modern Human Rights litigation. Job 5:4 says “His children are far from safety, crushed in court without defenders.” Ecclesiastes chapter 1 notes that nothing is happening now that has not been happening, or has not happened before. And the Old Testament would seem to confirm that such horrors have been plaguing man for quite some time. Psalms 10:2 says “[i]n his arrogance, the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises.” Ezekiel 22:29 observes “[t]he people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the alien, denying them justice.” Joel 3:3 says “[t]hey cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes; they sold girls for wine that they might drink.” Isaiah tells of worker abuse, and slavery, Amos tells of merchants cheating the poor, and Psalms further tells us about trafficking of persons - weaving tales of the wicked who lay in wait and capture the innocent and drag them from the village.
These cries, much like those from the abandoned villages in Northern Uganda or Burma or Guatemla that we hear today magnified through the megaphone of Human Rights NGOs like Restore International or the International Justice Mission, are lonely and loud, but do not escape God’s ears:
“Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the Lord. “I will protect them from those who malign them.” Psalm 12:5
Interestingly enough, God is not adding to the pool of rights or entitlements of the poor or the down-trodden. Rather, he is in the business of restoration - he is restoring them to the state they were in, a state of human dignity. God is in the business of returning the dignity of human beings, made and crafted in His image, to its condition before oppression. He is making right the wrong done in their name, “For he who avenges blood remembers; he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.” Pslam 9:12.
But what is the justice he is bestowing upon them? Where does the inherent dignity come from? The answer to that question, I believe, lays squarely within the debate on the existence of God himself. When Moses asked God “Whom shall I say sent me?” God responded “Eyah asher Eyah,” a biblical play on words if you will. God responded I Am he who is called I Am. For the Christian who truly believes God is El Shaddai, the Lord must be the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. If the justice and dignity the Lord were restoring to his people was not originally derivative of His being, than justice would be a concept existing outside of God. It would be a value or value cosmology if you will, which exists outside God that God may and ought to be judged against.
The explanation for the Christian cannot be that God can be judged against a standard of justice which man has created. It is God who is the justifier. At the end of the book of Job, after God has heard Job complain for what will be the last time, it is written:
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm: “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you shall answer me. Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God’s and can your voice thunder like his? Then...unleash the fury of your wrath,...crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.” Job 40:6-14
Either the Lord is right all the time, or we are. Either we can save ourselves, or we cannot. And if we can, then we are the justifiers and the dignity of all human beings comes from what we award ourselves. If not, then he is the Justifier, the King, El Shaddai and the source of justice forever, amen.

Into Africa Day #2 - I Hate London

We arrived in London around 2 in the afternoon (London time), today. We poked around Heathrow, got something to eat, and then pretty much parked it outside our gate.

Because I had already sat for far too long, I decided to poke around the shops. You'll never BELIEVE what I found - that's right folks, A DR. PEPPER!! I bought the last two in all of Heathrow [and I'm willing to believe, all of London - sine I hate London. If we were say in Croatia or some other place I actually liked I might be willing to go ahead and give it the benefit of the doubt and say there may still be Dr. Pepper dwelling somewhere within the geographic bounds therein...]. I am now drinking one, and the other is tucked up inside my cute little bag for later. I also procured Cadburry White Chocolate...

On the tram over to this terminal we met a guy who was on our plane over from LAX who is also going to Uganda. He is from USC and grew up in SoCal and has all these wierd connections with Matt. I would like to take this time to note I have had it UP TO HERE with the whole soCal thing. Moving on...he's also a Xtian, and he's looking at a job opening with some missionaries as a teacher. Astounding how God works through those who praise him, no?

Well, I'm up for some much needed rest - but we've reached that place: the Point of No Return. Let's just say that when I wake up, I'm GETTING ON THAT PLANE!!

Into Africa Day #1 - And They're Off!

Today Matt & I caught our plane from LAX to Heathrow in London. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 8:30 but it was at LEAST an hour behind. Either way was good for us though as it provided us the opportunity to get our affairs in order.

We drove to Ira'as house in BelAire and left my car there, in his trust, and he drove us to the Tom Bradley International Terminal. We had checked in online so gettin' our bags in was easy - we just went and dropped them off without incident.

The plane was really cramped, because there was barely enough room to breathe. Somehow that doesn't matter to me though.

Here Am I Lord, send me! [I don't read a qualifier there... I don't think Isaiah would've turned around if the camel was crowded...]

So Funny

Dave Barry is SUCH the genius! Read this article by him Partner found in the Miami Hearald!!




THE YEAR IN REVIEW
From Pelosi to Pitt, perverts to Paris, Dave Barry offers a last laugh
BY DAVE BARRY

It was a momentous year, a year of events that will echo in the annals of history the way a dropped plate of calamari echoes in an Italian restaurant with a tile floor. Decades from now, our grandchildren will come to us and say, ''Tell us, Grandpa or Grandma as the case may be, what it was like to be alive in the year that Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears and Katie whatshername all had babies, although not necessarily in those combinations.'' And we will smile wisely and emit a streamer of drool, because we will be very old and unable to hear them.

And that will be a good thing, because there are many things about 2006 that we will not want to remember. This was the year in which the members of the United States Congress, who do not bother to read the actual bills they pass, spent weeks poring over instant messages sent by a pervert. This was the year in which the vice president of the United States shot a lawyer, which turned out to be totally legal in Texas. This was the year in which there came to be essentially no difference between the treatment of maximum-security-prison inmates and the treatment of commercial-airline passengers.

This was the year in which -- as clearly foretold in the Bible as a sign of the Apocalypse -- Howie Mandel got a hit TV show.

Also there were many pesky problems left over from 2005 that refused to go away in 2006, including Iraq, immigration, high gas prices, terrorism, global warming, avian flu, Iran, North Korea and Paris Hilton. Future generations are going to look back at this era and ask us how we could have allowed Paris Hilton to happen, and we are not going to have a good answer.

Did anything good happen in 2006? Let me think. No. But before we move on to 2007, let's take a moment to reflect back on the historic events, real and imaginary, of this historic year, starting with . . .

JANUARY

. . . a month that dawns with petty partisan bickering in Washington, D.C., a place where many people view petty partisan bickering as honest, productive work, like making furniture. The immediate cause of the bickering is the Republican ethics scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, both of whom you can tell, just by looking at them, are guilty of something. The Democrats charge that the Republicans have created a Culture of Corruption and should be thrown out of office so the Democrats can return to power and run the scandal-free style of government for which they are so famous. The Republicans respond that the Democrats are soft on terrorism soft on terrorism soft on terrorism softonterrorism. Both sides issue press releases far into the night.

The other big focus of the bickering is the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. As always, the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings provide high-quality TV entertainment as the nation tunes in to see if Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be able to successfully remember the nominee's name. The bulk of the hearings are spent in the traditional manner, with Democrats trying to trick the nominee into revealing his views on abortion, and Republicans reminding the nominee that he does not have to reveal his views on abortion. The subsequent exchange of press releases is so intense that several government photocopiers burst into flames.

In the War on Terror, Osama bin Laden, who may or may not be dead, nevertheless releases another audio tape, for the first time making it downloadable from iTunes. Bin Laden also starts a blog, in which he calls upon his followers to destroy the corrupt infidels and also try to find out how a person, hypothetically, can get Chinese food delivered to a cave.

In the Middle East, Palestinian voters elect the militant Hamas party, which assumes control of government functions such as street repair, which Hamas decides to handle by firing rockets at potholes. Canada also holds elections, which are won by some Canadian, we assume.

In economic news, the big story is the retirement of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, who, after 19 years as the person most responsible for guiding the American economy, steps down, taking with him the thanks of a grateful nation and a suitcase containing $11 billion. But the financial news is not so good in . . .

FEBRUARY

. . . when President Bush, delivering what is billed as a ''major address on energy policy,'' reveals that the nation has an ''addiction'' to ''foreign oil'' which comes from ''foreign countries'' located ''outside of the United States'' which are getting this oil from ''under the ground.'' To combat this problem, the president proposes the development of ''new technology'' in the form of ''inventions'' such as ''a Lincoln Navigator that gets 827 miles per gallon,'' although he allows that this could take ``time.''

But this bold energy initiative does not get nearly as much attention as the administration's decision to allow a company owned by the United Arab Emirates to operate six U.S. seaports. This outrages Congress, which briefly ceases partisan bickering to demand that the White House return control of the ports, in the interest of national security, to Anthony Soprano.

Speaking of guys who avoid the limelight: Vice President Dick Cheney, attempting to bring down a quail with a shotgun, shoots attorney Harry Whittington. Local authorities rule the shooting was an accident, noting that if the vice president was going to intentionally shoot somebody, it would be Nancy Pelosi. The quail is eventually tracked down and vaporized by an F-16.

Internationally, the big news comes from Denmark, center of a mounting furor over some cartoons, published the previous year in a Danish newspaper, which depict a prophet whom, in the interest of not offending anybody, we will refer to as Fohammed. This upsets several million of the prophet's followers, who request a formal apology from the newspaper, greater sensitivity to their religious beliefs, and, where necessary, beheadings. Eventually everybody realizes that the whole darned thing was just a silly misunderstanding. That is all we are going to say about this.

In sports, Super Bowl XVXXLMCMII takes place in Detroit, and by all accounts it's a big success for the Motor City, with huge crowds thronging to both of the restaurants. The Pittsburgh Steelers win a game featuring a controversial play in which an apparent Seattle Seahawk touchdown pass is called back after the Steeler defender -- in what is later ruled an accident -- is gunned down by Vice President Cheney.

But the big sporting event is the Winter Olympics, a glorious quadrennial celebration of world-class virtuoso athletic accomplishment in sports nobody has ever heard of. Surprise winners include Latvia in the 500-kilometer Modified Nordic Combined; the Republic of Irvingkahnistan in the 2,300-meter Slavic Personified; and U.S. skier Bode Miller in Most Nike Commercials Featuring A Competitor Who, In the Actual Competitions, Mainly Falls Down.

Speaking of falling, in . . .

MARCH

. . . the real-estate boom appears to be over, as the government reports that, so far in 2006, only one U.S. homeowner managed to sell his house, and he had to offer, as an incentive to the buyer, his wife. But the employment numbers remain strong, thanks to strong growth in the sector of people trying to get you to refinance your mortgage for, like, the sixth time. Meanwhile, as the average gasoline price creeps past $2.50, the Hummer company, having downsized from the massive Hummer to the somewhat smaller H2, and then to the even smaller H3, begins development of the H4, which the company says will be ``a very rugged skateboard.''

In the Academy Awards, the overwhelming favorite for best picture is

Brokeback Mountain, the story of two men who discover, while spending many isolated weeks together in the mountains, that they enjoy exchanging instant messages with Mark Foley. But in a stunning upset, the Oscar for best picture instead goes to Crash, a documentary about Bode Miller.

In other entertainment news, a book by two San Francisco Chronicle writers revives suspicions about possible steroid use by San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, alleging, with extensive documentation, that as recently as 10 years ago, Bonds was a woman.

In other science news, thrilled NASA astronomers, in what they describe as a ''smashing, surprising'' discovery, announce that they have found evidence of pockets of water beneath the surface of Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn, which strongly suggests -- as has long been suspected -- that astronomers do not get out much.

In foreign news, Israeli voters give a parliamentary majority to acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, because his name can be rearranged to spell ''hot eel drum.'' Meanwhile in Paris, thousands of demonstrators take to the streets and shut down the city to demonstrate the fact that, hey, it's Paris. In the Middle East, tension mounts in response to mounting tension. We don't know specifically what is happening in Africa, but we know it is bad.

Speaking of things we know are bad, in . . .

APRIL

. . . Tom DeLay decides not to seek re-election to Congress, making the announcement via audio tape from a cave somewhere in Pakistan. Republican leaders express relief over DeLay's decision and issue a statement pledging that there will be ``no more Republican scandals, unless somebody finds out about Mark Foley.''

Meanwhile in the Middle East, tension mounts still higher when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces that Iran has successfully produced enriched uranium, although he claims that his nation plans to use it only for peaceful purposes ''such as cooking.'' In Iraq, there is good news and bad news for the Bush administration: The good news is that rival Iraqi leaders have finally agreed on a new prime minister. The bad news is that it is Nancy Pelosi.

Domestically, the national debate over illegal immigration heats up as thousands of demonstrators take to the streets of major U.S. cities, thus causing a total shutdown of Paris. Meanwhile the Mexican government, in what is widely viewed as a deliberate provocation, convenes in Milwaukee. But the big story is the price of gasoline, which continues its relentless climb toward an unprecedented $3 a gallon. Responding quickly, Congress, in a rare display of decisive bipartisan action, takes a recess, with both sides promising to resume bickering the instant they get back.

Speaking of your tax dollars at work, in . . .

MAY

. . . the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has a budget of over $3 billion, predicts that the 2006 hurricane season will be worse than usual. This item will seem funnier later in the year. In related news, the voters of New Orleans re-elect Ray Nagin as mayor, proving that Hurricane Katrina killed far more brain cells than was previously believed.

On the terrorism front, the Bush administration comes under heavy criticism following press reports that the National Security Agency has been collecting telephone records of millions of Americans. Responding to the outcry, President Bush assures the nation that ''the government is not collecting personal information on any individual citizen,'' adding, ``Warren H. Glompett of Boston, call your wife back immediately, because your dog has eaten your entire Viagra supply.''

In another controversial move, the president announces that he will use National Guard troops to stop illegal immigration. The initial troops are assigned to guard the border between Mexico and Arizona, with California, New Mexico and Texas being covered by Dick Cheney.

In Houston, former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are convicted of fraud by a federal jury, which apparently is not persuaded by the defense's claim that Skilling and Lay could not have been responsible for the collapse of the $100 billion corporation because they were, quote, ``both getting haircuts.''

TRUE FACT: After the verdict, Lay says, ``We believe that God in fact is in control.''

ANOTHER TRUE FACT: Less than two months later, Lay will die of heart failure.

In sports, Barbaro, the popular racehorse who won the Kentucky Derby, breaks his leg in the Preakness after a freak collision with Bode Miller. Barbaro is forced to retire, although his agent does not rule out future appearances on Dancing With the Stars. Meanwhile, the hottest show on TV is the much-hyped finale of American Idol, which is won by crooner Taylor Hicks, who narrowly edges out Nancy Pelosi.

Speaking of competition, in . . .

JUNE

. . . the big sports story is the start of the World Cup tournament, with U.S. fans hopeful that our players have finally caught up with the rest of the world in soccer. The American team arrives in Italy brimming with confidence, only to be informed that the tournament is being held in Germany. Undaunted, the team boards a train for Geneva, with the coach promising that ``we will score many touchdowns.''

In politics, the debate over Iraq continues to heat up, with President Bush insisting that ''we must stay the course, whatever it may or may not be,'' while the Democrats claim that they would bring the troops home ''immediately,'' or ''in about six months,'' or ''maybe not for a long time,'' depending on which particular Democrat is speaking and what time of day it is. On a more positive note, U.S. troops kill Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who is identified by intelligence experts as ''a person with a really terrorist-sounding name.'' In another hopeful development in Iraq, the Sunnis and the Shiites agree to try to come up with a simple way for Americans to remember which one is which.

On the legal front, the Supreme Court rules that the Bush administration cannot try suspected terrorists in ad hoc military tribunals, after the court learns that the administration is interpreting ''ad hoc'' to mean ``under water.''

Dan Rather, who stopped anchoring the evening news in 2005, announces his retirement from CBS after a career spanning 44 years and several galaxies. Explaining his decision, Rather cites a desire to ''explore other options'' and ``not keep getting maced by the CBS security guard.''

On a happier note, the United States marks the 50th anniversary of the Interstate Highway System -- an engineering marvel consisting of 47,000 miles of high-speed roads connecting 157,000 Waffle Houses. A formal ceremony is planned, but has to be canceled when Dad refuses to stop.

Speaking of speeding while high, in . . .

JULY

. . . the Tour de France bicycle race is once again tainted by suspicions of doping when the winner, American Floyd Landis, is clocked ascending the Alps at over 200 miles per hour. Landis denies that he uses illegal drugs, attributing his performance to, quote, ``gears.''

In other sports highlights, Italy defeats France in a World Cup final match that is marred by a violent head-butting incident involving Bode Miller. The U.S. team fares poorly in the World Cup, failing to win a single match; the players blame this on their inability to adjust to the ''no-hands'' rule.

But the month's big story occurs in the Middle East, where violence flares along the Israel-Lebanon border in response to the fact that, because of terrible planning, the two countries are located right next to each other. In another troubling international development, rogue state North Korea test-fires seven ballistic missiles, including two believed to be potentially capable of reaching U.S. soil. World tension goes back down when the missiles, upon reaching an altitude of 200 feet, explode and spell ''HAPPY BIRTHDAY.'' American military analysts caution that these missiles ``could easily be modified to spell something more threatening.''

In other rocket news, the troubled U.S. space program suffers yet another setback when the launch of the shuttle Discovery is delayed for several days by Transportation Security Administration screeners, who insist that the astronauts remove their shoes before they go through the metal detector. Finally, however, Discovery blasts off and flies a flawless mission, highlighted by scientific experiments proving when you let go of things in space, they float around, same as last year.

Outer space remains in the news in . . .

AUGUST

. . . when the International Astronomical Union rules that Pluto will no longer be classified as a major planet, on the grounds that it is ''less than half the size of James Gandolfini.'' A top U.S. law firm immediately files a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Pluto, as well as ``anybody else who has been hurt by this ruling, or has ever experienced neck pain.''

In sports, a French medical laboratory burns to the ground following the catastrophic explosion of Floyd Landis's urine sample.

Fidel Castro is rumored to be seriously ill following publication of photographs showing worms crawling out of his eye sockets. Cuban authorities insist that the aging leader is merely recovering from surgery, and that for the time being government operations are in the capable hands of Nancy Pelosi.

As the situation in Lebanon deteriorates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warns that, if violence continues, the United States will have no choice but to dispatch Vice President Cheney to the region to hunt quail. Within minutes a cease-fire breaks out, with both sides agreeing to resume fire at a mutually convenient future date.

Meanwhile, commercial air travel turns into a total nightmare. No, wait, it was already a total nightmare. But it turns into an even worse total nightmare after Britain uncovers a terrorist plot targeting international flights, which results in a whole new set of security rules, including a total ban on all gels and liquids, including spit, urine, heavy perspirers and lactating women. After days of chaos at the airports, the TSA issues a new directive stating that ''passengers may carry small quantities of liquids on board, but only if they are inside clear, one-quart, sealable plastic bags.'' This leads to still more chaos, as many TSA employees interpret this to mean that the passengers must be inside the bags. Eventually the TSA issues a clarification stating that ``if necessary, the bags can have air holes.''

Elsewhere in the War on Terror, the Bush administration suffers a setback when a federal judge in Michigan rules that U.S. authorities cannot call up suspected terrorists and try to get them to switch long-distance carriers.

In crime news, a man in Thailand claims that he had something to do with the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey. It quickly becomes clear that the man is an unstable creep whose story is totally unbelievable, so the cable-TV shows drop it.

Ha ha! Just kidding! The cable-TV shows go into days of round-the-clock All-JonBenet-All-The-Time Wallow Mode. Battalions of legal experts are brought in, some of them so excited at the opportunity to revisit the JonBenet tragedy that additional janitors have to be brought into the studios to mop up puddles of expert weewee.

On the weather front, the until-now quiet hurricane season erupts in fearsome fury in the form of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which hurricane experts, using scientific computer models, predict could become a major storm and inflict devastation upon Texas, or possibly Florida, or Connecticut. A state of near-panic sets in as millions of coastal residents jam gas stations, hardware stores and supermarkets, while many schools and businesses close. Tension mounts for days, until finally Ernesto slams into Florida with all the fury of a diseased fruit fly. Life slowly returns to normal for everyone except the ever-vigilant hurricane experts, who immediately begin scanning their scientific computer simulations for the next potentially deadly threat.

And speaking of deadly, in . . .

SEPTEMBER

. . . Steve ''Crocodile Hunter'' Irwin, filming an underwater episode of a TV show, is fatally wounded when -- in what biologists describe as a freak accident -- he collides with Bode Miller. Meanwhile, Americans -- already on edge because of concern over terrorism, avian flu, AIDS, nuclear escalation and global warming -- find themselves facing a deadly new menace: killer spinach. The lethal vegetable is removed from supermarket shelves by police SWAT teams; many units of innocent produce are harmed. Paris shuts down completely.

Speaking of vegetables, the United States Congress is rocked by yet another scandal with the publication of e-mails and instant messages sent to male pages by Congressman Mark Foley of Florida, in which he explicitly discusses acts of a sheepherding nature. As the scandal expands, House Republican leaders issue a statement claiming that they ''are not aware of any so-called Congressman Mark Foley of Florida.'' Democrats cite Foley as another example of Republican corruption, declaring that they would never, ever, under any circumstances tolerate such behavior, unless it involved a consenting page.

In other political developments, The New York Times prints a leaked top-secret government report expressing doubts about the war in Iraq. The Bush administration holds a secret meeting to prepare a response, but within hours The Times prints leaked details of the meeting, including who went to the bathroom, and why. The administration then attempts to take out The Times building with a missile, but the Times, using leaked launch codes, redirects it to The Washington Post. As the debate over Iraq heats up, President Bush pledges to ''keep on continuing to stay the present course while at the same time not doing anything different.'' Democratic leaders declare that they have a ''bold new plan'' for Iraq, which they will reveal just as soon as The New York Times leaks it to them.

Abroad, Pope Benedict XVI gets in big trouble when he gives a speech suggesting that the Muslim religion has historically been linked to violence. Ha ha! What a crazy idea! The pope soon sees that he has made a big mistake and apologizes several times.

Rumors about Fidel Castro's health continue to swirl following publication of a photograph showing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez shaking Castro's hand. The rest of Castro's body is nowhere to be seen.

Speaking of the Communist Menace, in . . .

OCTOBER

. . . North Korea conducts an underground nuclear test, which is especially troubling because the ground in question is located in Wyoming. This goes virtually unnoticed in Washington, where everybody continues to be obsessed with the growing body of instant messages generated by Mark Foley, who, despite his busy schedule as a lawmaker, apparently found time to attempt to become sheepherding buddies with pretty much every young male in North America.

In other political developments, Sen. Barack Obama, looking back on a career in the U.S. Senate that spans nearly 20 months, allows as how he might be ready to move on to the presidency. Obamamania sweeps the nation as millions of voters find themselves deeply impressed by Obama's views, and the fact that he was on Oprah. In a gracious gesture from a potential 2008 rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton sends Obama a good-luck card, which is stapled to the head of a horse.

Opponents of illegal Mexican immigration cheer when Congress authorizes the construction of a 700-mile fence. Their cheers quickly fade when they learn that, because of wording inserted at the last minute by Senators Robert Byrd and Ted Stevens, 650 miles of the fence will be constructed in West Virginia and Alaska.

Vice President Dick Cheney again becomes the center of controversy when, appearing on a radio show, he defends the interrogation technique known as ''water-boarding'' as a legitimate anti-terrorism tool, not torture. At first the host disagrees, but after several ''commercial breaks,'' Dick brings him around.

A strong earthquake shocks Hawaii, causing Paris to shut down completely.

In sports, a football game between the University of Miami and Florida International University is marred by violence, prompting both schools to seriously consider banning players from carrying handguns onto the field. In baseball, the New York Yankees, despite being clearly the best and most expensive team the world has ever seen, fail to even get into the World Series, leaving Yankee fans to spend yet another bitter off-season wondering why their team can't simply be awarded the championship, and not have to play these stupid games against clearly inferior teams from dirtball cities that don't even have subways.

But October ends on a happy note with the celebration of Halloween, a night of magical fun when millions of youngsters, all over America, are kept indoors. The most popular costumes this year, according to retailers, are Power Ranger and Nancy Pelosi.

As the election approaches, polls show that the Democrats have a good chance to regain control of Congress. But then disaster strikes in the form of John ''Mister Laffs'' Kerry, who, addressing a college audience, attempts to tell a joke, which is like a fish attempting to play the piano. This has major repercussions in . . .

NOVEMBER

. . . when Kerry's ''joke'' causes widespread outrage, prompting Kerry, with typical humility, to insist that it was obviously humorous, and anybody who disagrees is an idiot. Kerry is finally subdued by Democratic strategists armed with duct tape, but not before many political analysts see a tightening of the race to control Congress.

As the campaign lumbers to the finish line, the Republicans desperately hope that the voters will not notice that they -- once the party of small government -- have turned into the party of war-bungling, corruption-tolerating, pork-spewing power-lusting toads, while the Democrats desperately hope that the voters will not notice that they are still, basically, the Democrats. The actual voters, of course, are paying no attention, having given up on politics months ago because every time they turn on the TV all they see are political ads accusing pretty much every candidate on either side of being, at minimum, a child molester.

Thus nobody really knows what will happen as the voters go to the polls. In Florida, nobody knows anything even after the voting is over, because -- prepare to be shocked -- many electronic balloting machines malfunction. Voters in one district report that their machines, instead of displaying the candidates for Congress, showed Star Wars Episode IV. (By an overwhelming margin, this district elects Jabba the Hutt.)

Nationwide, however, it eventually becomes clear that the Democrats have gained control of both houses of Congress. President Bush handles the defeat with surprisingly good humor, possibly because his staff has not told him about it. For their part, future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and future Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issue a joint statement promising to ''make every effort to find common ground with the president,'' adding, ''we are clearly lying.'' Pelosi sets about the difficult task of trying to fill leadership posts with Democrats who have not been videotaped discussing bribes with federal undercover agents.

The first major casualty of the GOP defeat is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who, the day after the election, is invited to go quail-hunting with the vice president. He is never seen again. As Rumsfeld's replacement, the president nominates -- in what is widely seen as a change in direction on Iraq -- Barbra Streisand.

In other celebrity news, Michael Richards, a graduate of the Mel Gibson School of Standup, responds to a comedy-club heckler by unleashing a racist tirade so vile that even John Kerry realizes it is not funny. A chastened Richards apologizes for his behavior, citing, by way of explanation, the fact that he is a moron.

Speaking of which, O.J. Simpson is once again in the headlines when Fox TV announces that Simpson will be interviewed on a two-night special show in conjunction with his new book, If I Did It, in which he will explain how, ''hypothetically,'' he would have murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. This idea is so sick, so disgusting, so utterly depraved, that it would undoubtedly get huge ratings. But Fox, faced with withering criticism, is forced to cancel the project, which is the brainchild of publisher Judith Regan, about whom you could write a ''hypothetical'' book titled If Judith Regan Had the Moral Standards of a Tapeworm.

On the economic front, the holiday shopping season officially kicks off with ''Black Friday,'' and retailers are pleased with the numbers: 2,038 shoppers hospitalized, up 37 percent from last year.

In other good news, with four days left in the virtually storm-free 2006 hurricane season and still no storms in sight, U.S. weather experts, citing new data, predict that the season will end up having been very mild. This forecast turns out to be right on the money, but the experts waste no time on self-congratulation, as they immediately begin making scientific predictions for next year's hurricane season, which, they warn, could be a bad one.

Speaking of bad . . .

DECEMBER

. . . gets off to a troubling start, with the worsening situation in Iraq worsening faster than ever. The nation's hopes for a solution are pinned on the Iraq Study Group, a presidentially appointed blue-ribbon panel consisting of five Republicans, five Democrats, and the Wizard of Oz. In accordance with longstanding Washington tradition, the panel first formally leaks its report to The New York Times, then delivers it to the president, who turns it over to White House personnel specially trained in reading things.

In essence, the study group recommends a three-pronged approach, consisting of: (1) a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops, but not on a fixed timetable; (2) intensified training of Iraqi troops; and (3) the physical relocation of Iraq, including buildings, to Greenland. Republican and Democratic leaders, after considering the report for the better part of a nanosecond, commence what is expected to be a minimum of two more years of bickering.

With the Iraq situation pretty much solved, the world's attention shifts to Iran and its suspected nuclear program, which becomes the subject of renewed concern after U.S. satellites detect a glowing 400-foot-high spider striding around Tehran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists that it is ''a peaceful spider'' that will be used ''only for mail delivery.'' Shortly thereafter, North Korea -- in what many observers see as a deliberate provocation -- detonates a nuclear device inside the Lincoln Memorial.

Finally responding to these new threats to international stability, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the U.S., the U.K., Russia, China and Google -- hold an emergency meeting in Paris, where, after heated debate, they vote to have a bottle of 1959 Chateau Margaux with their entrée. Unfortunately, they cannot agree on a dessert wine, causing the city, which had just reopened, to shut down completely.

In other food news, New York City, having apparently solved all of its other problems, bans ''trans fats.'' Hours later, police surround a Burger King in Brooklyn and fire 57 bullets into a man suspected of carrying a concealed Whopper. The medical examiner's office, after a thorough investigation, concludes that the man ``definitely could have developed artery problems down the road.''

Speaking of health problems, rumors that Fidel Castro is ailing gain new strength when, at an official state dinner in Havana, a waiter accidentally tips over the longtime Cuban leader's urn, spilling most of him on the floor.

In other deceased-communist news, British police decide to treat the mysterious death of a former Russian spy in London as a murder, caused by the radioactive element polonium-210. New York immediately bans the element, forcing the closure of 70 percent the of city's Taco Bells.

As the year, finally, nears its conclusion, Americans turn their attention to the holiday season, which they celebrate -- as generations have before them -- by frantically overbidding on eBay for the Sony PlayStation 3, of which Sony, anticipating the near-homicidal level of demand, manufactured an estimated 11 units. Millions of Americans also head ''home for the holidays,'' making this one of the busiest air-travel seasons ever. The always-vigilant TSA responds by raising the Security Threat Level to ''ultraviolet,'' which means that passengers may not board an airplane if they contain blood.

But despite the well-founded fear of terrorism, the seemingly unbreakable and escalating cycle of violence in the Middle East, the uncertain world economic future, the menace of global warming, the near-certainty that rogue states run by lunatics will soon have nuclear weapons, and the fact that America is confronting these dangers with a federal government sharply divided into two hostile parties unable to agree on anything except that the other side is scum, Americans face the new year with a remarkable lack of worry, and for a very good reason: They are busy drinking beer and watching football.

So happy new year.

(Burp.)