JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) - A bullet fired in the air during a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony came down and struck a participant in the head, critically injuring him, authorities said.

Gregory Allen Freeman, 45, was charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment in the Saturday night incident that wounded Jeffery S. Murr, 24.

About 10 people, including two children, had gathered for the ceremony. The man who was being initiated was blindfolded, tied with a noose to a tree and shot with paintball guns as Freeman fired a pistol in the air to provide the sound of real gunfire, Sheriff Fred Phillips said.

A bullet struck Murr on the top of the head and exited at the bottom of his skull, authorities said.

The last time he dined with the Queen — in 1992 at his father's White House, wearing cowboy boots emblazoned with GOD SAVE THE QUEEN — he asked if she had any black sheep in her family. "Don't answer that!" his mother Barbara interjected, trying to avoid embarrassment.

George W. Bush has allegedly offended Queen Elizabeth II by bringing no fewer than five of his personal chefs to Buckingham Palace.

"Her Majesty greeted the news that Bush was coming with his own chefs in absolute silence," a snitch tells London's Daily Telegraph.

"That's her general way of expressing disapproval. She's not thought to be [thrilled] about the whole visit anyway, but when you consider that she has excellent cooks herself, you can see why this would be taken as a bit of an insult."

Palace staff said they had never seen the Queen so angry as when she saw how her perfectly-mantained lawns had been churned up after being turned into helipads with three giant H landing markings for the Bush visit.

The rotors of the President's Marine Force One helicopter and two support Black Hawks damaged trees and shrubs that had survived since Queen Victoria's reign.

And Bush's army of clod-hopping security service men trampled more precious and exotic plants.

The Queen's own flock of flamingoes, which security staff insisted should be moved in case they flew into the helicopter rotors, are thought to be so traumatised after being taken to a "place of safety" that they might never return home.

The historic fabric of the Palace was also damaged as high-tech links were fitted for the US leader and his entourage during his three-day stay with the Queen.

The Palace's head gardener, Mark Lane, was reported to be in tears when he saw the scale of the damage.

"The Queen has every right to feel insulted at the way she has been treated by Bush," said a Palace insider.

Many of the founders of neoconservatism, including The Public Interest founder Irving Kristol and coeditor Nathan Glazer, Sidney Hook, and Albert Wohlstetter, were either members of or close to the Trotskyist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Younger neoconservatives, including Penn Kemble, Joshua Muravchik, and Carl Gershman, came through the Socialist Party at a time when former Trotskyist Max Schachtman was still a commanding figure.

One key point that was repeatedly made was the ease by which Republicans can define themselves. "Pro-family values. Anti-tax. The party of patriotism." It may all be b.s., but at least they know what they stand for. Ask ten Democrats what the Democratic Party is all about, and you'll get ten completely different answers.

The Democratic Party is the party of progress. Progress means strengthening our defenses and strengthening our alliances. Tax policies that help working people and the middle class, closing loopholes for corporations and making sure that wealthy Americans do not get all of the benefits. Investing in people so all those who make the grade can afford a college education or the training the need to get ahead. Moving people from welfare into the workforce through training they need to get ahead. Moving people from welfare into the workforce through training and job placement. Making American energy independent while cleaning our environment. And progress means ensuring that all Americans have access to healthcare and are able to save for a secure retirement.

• Strengthening our defenses and strengthening our alliances. I don’t think this should be first. Though it will be a big issue in the 2004 election, this is not the key item that defines being a Democrat, unless the statement is just meant as an election year throw-away. This point needs lots of work (i.e. strengthening isn’t what progress means; it might be a means of assuring progress). Is “strength” the totality of what we have to say about foreign and military affairs?
  
• Tax policies that help working people and the middle class, closing loopholes for corporations and making sure that wealthy Americans do not get all of the benefits. No real argument here.
  
• Investing in people so all those who make the grade can afford a college education or the training the need to get ahead. This only refers to higher education. We need an unambiguous statement in support of public education.
  
• Moving people from welfare into the workforce through training they need to get ahead. Moving people from welfare into the workforce through training and job placement. Getting off welfare needs to mentioned as a follow-up to a strong support for a system of societal safety nets. Also, make it one sentence.
  
• Making American energy independent while cleaning our environment. This is two very important points that deserve separate commitments. Energy probably needs to be stated as a commitment to reducing dependency and expanding alternate resources. Environment is more than cleaning existing problems; it is preservation, understanding, and reducing our impact without surrendering a strong economy.
  
• Americans have access to healthcare and are able to save for a secure retirement. Again, probably two points and needs to be higher up.

I don't usually join in the gleeful trouncing of misstatements by the politically notable, but maybe we can file this one from Trent Lott under Logical Malapropisms instead of Racial Distemper: on NPR this morning I overheard him say that the upcoming Senate filibuster on judicial nominees was a disservice to "men, women and minorities". I certainly hope no one else noticed this slip of the tongue and puts it on a web site or something.

Discussing the worries of civilians in Baghdad, where missiles are destroying hotels and suicide bombers are killing or wounding hundreds, the Times assured its readers that, "The United States is doing everything it can to fight their fears. All over the city, the occupying authorities have put up large billboards featuring bucolic scenes of date palms arched over a riverbank. Inspirational messages are splashed over the pretty pictures. 'Baghdad is getting better,' says one."

This sounds like the most cynical political satire. Iraqis have lived for decades with a constant barrage of optimistic pronouncements from Saddam Hussein's government, even as they lost wars and underwent suffering from an international embargo. They are among the least likely people on earth to believe cheery billboards that are contradicted by the evidence of their own eyes and the experiences of their friends and neighbors.

It seems like anyone these days can throw around the term "racism" to try to suppress any campus speech that they don't like. How, exactly, can pointing out in an ad that Palestinians in Lebanon celebrated the 9/11 attacks possibly be construed as racism? Bravo to the editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily, who refused to kowtow to such nonsense.

“Hey now, I grew up in Topeka, KS, where those abhorrent protesters have their base. Don't stereotype us all, please.”

“I also must take offense with the generalization of Kansans. I happen to live in that state…”

“It really sucks when y'all talk about disenfranchising ((STATE X)) 'cause they're not sufficiently urban/Northern...” This one seemed to be aware that Atrios was being sarcastic, but couldn’t resist complaining anyway. Go figure.

College students caring enough about abstract principles to get hot under the collar and argue them in public is a good thing. Atrios is funny. Irony is wasted on Americans.

For 15 years, high school history teacher Abtsam Jassom has dutifully taught 20th-century history according to the Baath Party. In it, America was the greedy invader, every Iraqi war was justified and victorious, and Zionists were the cause of world suffering.

Now, however, with the ouster of former President Saddam Hussein, US officials say teachers will finally be free to teach a more factual account of historical events. But the question is: Whose account will that be?

The first indicator of what a Saddam-free education will look like is arriving this month, as millions of newly revised textbooks roll off the printing presses to be distributed to Iraq's 5.5 million schoolchildren in 16,000 schools. All 563 texts were heavily edited and revised over the summer by a team of US-appointed Iraqi educators. Every image of Saddam and the Baath Party has been removed.

But so has much more - including most of modern history. Pressured for time, and hoping to avoid political controversy, the Ministry of Education under the US-led coalition government removed any content considered "controversial," including the 1991 Gulf War; the Iran-Iraq war; and all references to Israelis, Americans, or Kurds.

"Entire swaths of 20th-century history have been deleted," says Bill Evers, a US Defense Department employee, and one of three American advisers to the Ministry of Education.

In months ahead, Hussein [head of the text revision committee] will begin organizing a curriculum committee that represents different religious, political, and ethnic groups from around the country. US officials say most curriculum decisions will be made after the civilian government leaves Iraq, and that they will play a limited role - unless things go in a direction they don't approve.

"We will strongly recommend concepts of tolerance, and be against anything that is anti-Semitic or anti-West - content that would only sow the seeds for future intolerance," says Gregg Sullivan, spokesman for the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau of the State Department. "We'd hope it's only an advisory role, but if something develops that's disadvantageous to the Iraqi people, we'd weigh in on a stronger level."

Have they thought this through? In the first place, Bush was hardly alone in believing Iraq possessed WMDs. All of the Democratic candidates thought so, too. As did the U.N., the British, the French (yes, the French should know, they built Saddam's first reactor back in 1981), the Russians and even Scott Ritter. He certainly possessed them in the past, and used them on the Kurds and the Iranians. And why would Bush lie about something that would so rapidly be revealed?

Gregory Jones of Southern Oregon University and his colleagues analyzed data from 27 of the top wine-producing regions worldwide from the last 50 years …. Overall, they found an average temperature increase of two degrees Celsius for the wine regions and higher vintage ratings for their products. "There were no negative impacts," Jones notes.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is shifting policy so cities and towns can skip a required treatment procedure for sewage they pump into rivers, lakes and coastal waters during high rains.

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In my correspondence with Luskin he asked that I take down the post because of the comments, and said I had an obligation to do so. I asked if he meant a legal or ethical obligation, and he didn't respond. I then informed him that if he would tell me which comments he specifically was unhappy with I would be happy to delete them. He declined this offer, and said I should just take them all down.

That's the spirit, George. If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

-- General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett
(Blackadder Goes Forth)

Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush ... said his message that "the world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership" will be a prominent theme of his bid for a second White House term.