Coca-Cola C2 coming this summer

They don't say it, but the skyrocketing sales of Diet Rite have prompted this move.

Symbolic window broken at BR church

My belief system is about as far-removed from the Unitartian-Universalist non-creed as one can get. Yet only a godless barbarian would engage in an act of vandalism against this peaceful congregation on Goodwood Boulevard. The round window you see above has now been shattered, costing the church thousands of dollars in repairs. For a denomination which values everyone and whose sanctuary window is a sacred symbol of their cornerstone belief, this incident hits at the core of what they hold dear...and must hurt.

Unlike some of the more strident puritan denominations, this community bothers no one and isn't in your face with evangelism. Still, their very existence must bother some of the more religiously atavistic determined to convert everyone. (A large print edition of the Bible wouldn't have broken a glass so a rock had to be used instead.) My own faith has been the target of religious violence - every so often some fundamentalist nut breaks into a "papist" sanctuary and knocks down a few of the "graven images" - and every time this happens, I can't help but recall the bile spewed out by Jimmy Swaggart, Bob Jones, Jack Chick and other merry bands of idiots. Although the Uni's don't agree with much of any other faith, they will defend anyone's ability to worship as they choose.

This act of vandalism is an affront to all faith communities. Let us hope the perpetrator(s) will be dealt with in a manner appropriate to the situations. In other words, in a distinctly non-Universalist way.

7 Arrested in School Cafeteria Food Fight

Maybe I spoke too soon.

UN inspectors: Saddam shipped out WMD before war and after

but we know this already, right?

Protesters

Dogfuckers.

Teacher suspended for washing student's mouth out with soap

After a hundred years of threats, one teacher does the deed and gets popped for it. Students of the world, permission to go fucking nuts granted.

McDonald's offers new low-carb Coke

Er, haven't they offered the no-carb Diet Coke for twenty years?

I've told you already!

This is news?

"Sen. John McCain rejects Sen. John Kerry's overtures to join Democratic presidential ticket, AP reports."

For the 50,000th time. Look CNN, fantasizing about it won't make it happen. So towel off and get back to work.

Kerry honored at communist museum

The Manchurian Candidate:



Placard: "Mr. Do Muoi, Secretary General of the Vietnamese Communist Party met with Congressman and Veterans Delegation in Vietnam (July 15-18, 1993)."

No shame, part deux

No shame

You would think that after Paul Wellstone's funeral that the Democrats would wise up about protocol.

Ray Charles: Soul Man

"Perhaps never again will one artist stand so astride American music and culture, reflecting their beauty, internal contradictions and redeeming soul."

U.S. loses "gentle man," says Reagan's ex-wife Wyman

After decades of silence, Jane Wyman speaks about Reagan. This I find touching:

"Wyman, of Rancho Mirage, stayed in touch with their adopted son, Michael, about Reagan’s condition as the end neared.

"Local print and broadcast journalist Gloria Greer said Wyman told her she 'talked frequently' with Nancy about Alzheimer’s after Reagan contracted it."

It may be a natural reaction in a time of mourning to cast aspersions on an ex-wife. To the credit of both parties, a Victorian attitude towards the unplesantness was maintained.

Doctor Calls Saddam a 'Psychopath'

"Ala Bashir, plastic surgeon and artist, gave Saddam's first wife a face-lift, sewed back part of the president's finger and was forced to wait countless hours by Saddam's son Uday during 20 years as a presidential medical attendant."

You wouldn't know by looking at the guy that he had a plastic surgeon on call.

Ray Charles Dead at 73

As if the world wasn't sad enough already.

This man who gave us soul music, a tremendous gift to the world, has hit the road to the next. When you say "Ray Charles" everybody pictures a man with a mile-wide smile making the most joyful noise imaginable.

You owe it to yourself to buy some Ray Charles music, put it on, and absorb it, digest it, let it imbed itself in your brain. My favorites are the big band LPs The Genius of Ray Charles and The Genius Hits the Road. You may like some of the more soulful things, of which there is an abundance. A whole lotta folks bought Modern Sounds in Country & Western. Far less bought his jazz stuff, but it's tasty too. Whatever flava you dig, it doesn't matter...it's all good.

Many TV and radio stations had been using Ray's seminal version of "America the Beautiful" in paying tribute to Ronald Reagan. It's saddening that the man whose own deeply moving expression of his patriotism and faith comforts us is himself called home.

God Bless Brother Ray.

Rachel Hunter blasts Clinton, praises Bush

Not only is she hot, she's smart too:

"If I could, I would vote for Bush. He has done what needed to be done because if Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden had their way, none of us would be around in 10 years.

"Clinton had a lot of tea parties with celebrities, but [right after] his term, somebody flew two planes into the Twin Towers. What do you want - somebody who keeps your children safe or somebody who throws nice tea parties?"

Salute

'Bush should have died, not Reagan': Morrissey

I was thinking about buying Morrissey's new album, but I have suddenly changed my mind.

Reagan: Prouder, Stronger, Better

Watch the great "Morning in America" commercial, one of the best political spots of all time.

Interview with O.J. Simpson

I'm watching OJ on Fox News and I'm not convinced that anything he is saying is the truth. He's dumping on everybody - Nicole, Kato Kaelin - but not himself. I'm not hearing any of the pain that someone like him should be feeling. He's talking like a pitchman in a Hertz commercial, like he's selling us on this life he has, and trying to make the public believe this myth he's created. Most notably, he's giving far too many details, obscuring the point of Greta's questions, a common evasive tactic.

Maybe the person he's most trying to convince is himself.

Cuba lambasts says former President Ronald Reagan should ``never have been born''

An appropriate response from Bush on this insult:

"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Cuba forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Bush Calls for 'Culture Change'

Right out of the Reagan playbook.

Kerry on Reagan, back in the day

Kudos to Rich Lowry for digging these up:

"Then-Lt. Gov. John Kerry, in a letter to a constituent, April 1983: 'What we as citizens can tell our government is that President Reagan should reorder his priorities. We don't need expensive and exotic weapons systems.'

"Then-Lt. Gov. John F. Kerry in a statement, February 1, 1984: '[Reagan] has mortgaged our future in order to pay for a bloated military budget of which 45% is spent on the research, development and procurement of more weapons of destruction.'

"John Kerry quoted in an article in the Berkshire Eagle on May 30, 1984 entitled 'Kerry asks $54 billion cut in Reagan defense budget': 'The defense expenditures of the Reagan administration are without any relevancy to the threat this nation is currently facing.'

"Sen. John Kerry, in remarks to Citizens for Participation in a Political Action Convention on January 19, 1985: '[W]e are watching an administration walk away from any sense of trying to deal with what weapons systems we need to really maintain a legitimate level of defense, versus what they are willing to simply fund and fund and fund, out of their willingness to fund any weapons system. They've never met one they don't like.'

"John Kerry on 9/15/92: 'Ronald Reagan certainly was never in combat. I mean, many of his movies depicted him there. And he may have believed he was, but he never was. And the fact is that he sent Americans off to die.'"

Enemy Islam. An Interview with the Bishop of Rumbek, Sudan

Read and learn from a man under constant siege:

"The Church has defeated communism, but is just starting to understand its next challenge - Islamism, which is much worse. The Holy Father has not been able to take up this challenge due to his old age. But the next pope will find himself having to face it."

"It will be the Muslims who convert us, not the other way around. Wherever they settle down, sooner or later they end up becoming a leading political force. The Italians are intent on welcoming them in an easy-going manner. But soon they’ll realize that the Muslims have taken advantage of their good-natured spirit, allowing ten times more to arrive than what was originally permitted. They are much more clever than we are. They knock my schools down and you leave your church doors wide open for them. If someone is a thief, you don’t give them a room in your apartment, because sooner or later you’ll find all your furniture gone.”

"Q. – Recent statistics say that only 20% of Muslims in Italy respect the Koran’s teachings, just as only 20% of Catholics go to Mass every Sunday. Hence they are Muslims, but in name only.

"A. – “But their Islamic culture remains. Religion is only a part of their civilization. No one can erase their belonging to the umma, the community of Muslim believers.”

"Q. – Does it make sense to export our democracy in agricultural and sheep-herding societies that make no distinction between religion and politics?

"A. – “No. This is idiotic. Islamic people base their decisions only and exclusively on the umma. They don’t even know what individual rights are. It’s absurd to teach them the first amendment of the American Constitution, which says Congress can make no law to prohibit freedom of worship or to limit freedom of speech or the press. They have absolutely no comprehension of this.”

Reagan's Remarks at an Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, Texas

Reagan's faith, expressed outwardly:

"I believe that George Washington knew the City of Man cannot survive without the City of God, that the Visible City will perish without the Invisible City.

"Religion played not only a strong role in our national life; it played a positive role. The abolitionist movement was at heart a moral and religious movement; so was the modern civil rights struggle. And throughout this time, the state was tolerant of religious belief, expression, and practice. Society, too, was tolerant.

"But in the 1960's this began to change. We began to make great steps toward secularizing our nation and removing religion from its honored place."

--August 23, 1984

Carter expresses grief over loss of former president

Grief because "There you go again" is being rerun ad nauseam.

FOX rewrites the rules with its summer season

This is a great move for Fox. They can't get arrested in the fall, so give the folks new shows at a time when they crave it. So what if it fails or fails to carry over into the fall. At the very least, it's good to see the networks innovating again.

Juliana Hatfield explores her life in music

A new album from one of the great artists of 1990's alternative rock. Check it out.

Radio Silence

How NPR silenced classical music in favor of wall-to-wall liberal talk.

Quotes: A Nation Reacts

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: 'I've studied him more than any other man in modern politics. ... He changed the direction of the world on the strength of his convictions.'

Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: 'It is easy to see how profoundly President Reagan changed the world. He made it safer, more free and gave hope and opportunity to millions.

Newt Gingrich: 'All free people stand on Reagan's shoulders. His principled policies proved that free markets create wealth, that the rule of law sustains freedom, and that all people everywhere deserve the right to dream, to pursue their dreams, and to govern themselves.'

Sen. John McCain: 'In the more than thirty years that have passed since I first met [Ronald Reagan], I have never lived a day that I wasn't grateful for the privilege of the Reagans' friendship, and the strength of his faith in America that inspired my own, and so many others.'

Secretary of State Colin Powell: "President Reagan fueled the spirit of America. His smile, his optimism, his total belief in the ultimate triumph of democracy and freedom, and his willingness to act on that belief, helped end the Cold War and usher in a new and brighter phase of history."

New York Gov. George Pataki: "The sun has set on the remarkable life of the great man who reminded us it is always morning in America. President Ronald Wilson Reagan will always be remembered as a man of unwavering principle whose sense of hope, optimism and opportunity appealed to the best in Americans."

Unfortunately, Fox included commentary from this turd:

Actor Danny Glover: "We all know Reagan's legacy, from the Iran-Contra affair to the funding of the Nicaraguan military in which over 200,000 people died. The groundwork for the move steadily to the right happened with the Reagan administration. People want to elevate him to some mythic level; they have their own reason for doing that."

Meanwhile, in another part of Hollywood...

Johnny Grant, honorary mayor of Hollywood and a longtime friend of Reagan from his Hollywood days: "He was a man who loved his country. I don't know of anybody who's done more for this country and the entertainment industry."

Pollsters: Bush Retaining Party Base

Ya think?!

Conservatives know it's us vs. them.

Speaking of "under the radar"...

J. Lo weds Marc Anthony. Damn! I had to wait out Ben Affleck and now this guy comes out of nowhere and steals J-Lo away from D-Go.

Out of the blue....

This morning I got a call from someone I went to high school with saying there was a reunion next weekend and wanted to know if I was going to be there.

Talk about left field. I know it's time for one, but I received no printed invite. What the hell!

Pop Culture moment

I find it amazing that after playing the French national anthem during the D-Day ceremonies - airing live now - the marching band accompanies the parade of vets by breaking into the theme to "The Longest Day"! Not a song from the invasion, a song from an all-star movie about the invasion!

BTW, Paul Anka will be getting a royalty check in the mail for this.

Ronald Reagan was a political warrior and hero

Chris Matthews reflects:

"Reagan was a tougher, more on-guard character than the guy you'd figure from his breezy public personality - more Jimmy Cagney than Jimmy Stewart.
...

"People forget: Reagan defeated Bobby Kennedy in debate before the Oxford Union.

"He was the political street fighter who got up off the dirt to win the 1976 North Carolina primary when nearly everybody counted him for dead.

"He was the cold-blooded gladiator who strode to the podium of that year's Republican convention and delivered such a barn-burner it made people wonder what Gerald Ford, the party nominee, was doing on the stage.

"He was the no-nonsense boss who fired thirteen thousand striking U.S. air traffic controllers."

Watershed events all.

How a Radio Sportscaster and Actor Became the Michael Jordan of Politics

Former Nixon staffer, actor, professor and game show host Ben Stein remembers Reagan.