HANNITY: Should -- why would Al Gore associate with a group that is that left wing and that radical? What if he spoke before the Klan? Would that -- would we not hold him in judgment for that?

President Bush's offer to demolish Abu Ghraib prison — made in a speech Monday night — found little support among Iraqis, with the head of the Governing Council yesterday calling the idea "a waste of resources."

[...]

Bush told an audience Monday night at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., that Abu Ghraib, scene of prisoner abuse by U.S. troops and notorious for torture under Saddam Hussein, will be destroyed "as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning."

[...]

Interior Minister Samir Shaker Mahmoud al-Sumeidi said he understood Bush's desire to "remove the memory and the stain" of the prisoner-abuse scandal. Still, he argued it would be better to change the way the prison is managed rather than construct a new building.

[From the Move On press release] Former Vice President Al Gore delivered a major foreign policy address in New York City today, sponsored by MoveOn PAC, linking the Abu Ghraib prison abuses to deep flaws in President Bush’s Iraq policy and calling for the resignation of 6 members of the Bush Administration team responsible for the failed policy and abuse of prisoners in Iraq. The members include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence Agency, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Stephen A. Cambone, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

"George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

"He promised to “restore honor and integrity to the White House.” Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.

"Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as “a decent respect for the opinion of mankind.” He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.

"How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words “We Are All Americans Now” and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib."

In which executive departments have attorneys been called upon to review the legality under American and international law of interrogation methods such as "water boarding" (in which people are dipped into water to make them fear they're about to be drowned) and multi-year confinement of people in total isolation? (On the strategy of permanent solitary confinement, see the Declaration of Lowell Jacoby, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, on which the administration has relied in court.)

What conclusions did these attorneys reach on the legality of these methods?

How were disputes among attorneys or departments about the legality of these methods resolved? By whom?

Was DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel ever asked to opine on the lawfulness of any specific methods of interrogation? On whether any specific method of interrogation or approach to interrogation constituted "torture" within the meaning of any federal statute or treaty, or a violation of any provision of the Geneva Conventions? Who prepared any such opinion? What conclusion did he or she reach? Did DOJ's position on any such question conflict with an opinion rendered in another executive department? If so, how was the dispute resolved?

Given that there was no explicit congressional authorization for techniques of this sort, was there discussion within the executive branch about whether any congressional act even implicitly approved of them? Or about whether it was necessary to inform Congress in any way about the more aggressive methods of interrogation? What position did lawyers take on these questions? How, and by whom, were any disputes on these questions resolved?

• His corruption has been well reported in the press; why has the administration tolerated him for so long?
  
  
• When an audit showed $22 million in his care missing, why did the administration continue to pay him and trust him?
  
  
• When his intelligence turned out to be worthless, why did the administration continue to stand by it?
  
  
• We are accusing him of passing classified information to the Iranians; who gave him (a foreign civilian) access to that information?
  
  
• How long has the administration known he was in bed with the Iranians?
  
  
• Why did they choose this moment to break relations with him?
  
  
• Is the administration trying to scapegoat all of their failures in Iraq on to Chalabi and the Iranians?
  
  
• Will this result in new investigations of the administration or just add flavor to the existing investigations?
  
  
• Is the administration setting the stage for some election-time saber-rattling at the Iranians?
  
  
• Are we still stupid enough to fall for that?

Presented last fall with a detailed catalog of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the American military responded on Dec. 24 with a confidential letter asserting that many Iraqi prisoners were not entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Conventions.

The letter, drafted by military lawyers and signed by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, emphasized the "military necessity" of isolating some inmates at the prison for interrogation because of their "significant intelligence value," and said that prisoners held as security risks could legally be treated differently from prisoners of war or ordinary criminals.

"The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me, and that is the competence of our leader," Pelosi said. "These policies are not working. But speaking specifically to Iraq, we have a situation where -- without adequate evidence -- we put our young people in harm's way."

[...]

"Nancy Pelosi should apologize for her irresponsible, dangerous rhetoric," DeLay, R-Texas, said. "She apparently is so caught up in partisan hatred for President Bush that her words are putting American lives at risk."

[...]

"The San Francisco/Boston Democrats led by John Kerry have now adopted 'Blame America First' as their official policy," RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said in the statement.

[...]

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Pelosi’s comments “represent a grotesque political attack. They’re simply outrageous, and the American people will reject that type of blame America first.”

[...]

And Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said if all Pelosi could offer is taunting U.S. troops “by saying they are dying needlessly and are risking their lives on a shallow mission, then she should just go back to her pastel-colored condo in San Francisco and keep her views to herself.”

Uncle Milton's Giant Ant Farm is a fun, interactive way to teach children ages 5 and up about unceasing, backbreaking toil and the cold, inescapable reality of death. My little ones had a front-row seat as worker ants labored, day in and day out, until they inevitably died of exhaustion, their futile efforts all for naught. The ant farm, complete with stackable tiny ant barns, see-through 'Antway' travel tubes, and connecting 'Antports,' is a child's window into the years of thankless, grueling labor that await them as worker drones in our post-industrial society. It's the fun way to teach your kids to accept their miserable fate stoically. The ants, which come separately from the farm, are bred in New Mexico and mailed directly to your home. Within days of arriving, a majority of the ants die at the hands of the small children responsible for regulating the temperature, humidity, and food supply in their delicate pseudo-ecosystem. Even under optimum conditions the ants survive no more than 20 weeks in the farm. As a result, children are assured the chance to contemplate the inescapability of their own mortality and the whole family will be reminded that the spectre of death hangs over every creature on this Earth. The lesson that the ants' labor is all in vain becomes clearer as time passes. During the first two to three weeks, the exclusively female worker ants are extremely productive, building an elaborate system of tunnels and hills amongst the miniature green trees and red plastic houses dotting the interior of the plastic dome. However, because neither male ants nor a fertile queen is provided with Uncle Milton's Giant Ant Farm, making reproduction impossible, the farm is doomed to extinction from day one. You'll learn such fascinating things about the natural world, like the fact that the social structure of an ant colony is extremely complex, with individual members occupying such castes as soldier, messenger, and larvae attendant. At some point, Uncle Milton's ants become cognizant that their hierarchical structure has been stripped away, rendering their already near-meaningless existence totally futile. There seems to be a breaking point at about the 22-day mark when the dejected ants begin to die off en masse. At this point the ant farm enters what is known as the "death-pile phase." A spot is chosen by the worker ants to deposit their dead, and the burial mound steadily grows as the few remaining ants devote more of their time to gathering and burying others. Yes, with Uncle Milton's Giant Ant Farm, arbeit macht fun!

Geologists have added a new period to their official calendar of Earth's history - the first in 120 years.

The Ediacaran Period covers some 50 million years of ancient time on our planet from 600 million years ago to about 542 million years ago.

It officially becomes part of the Neoproterozoic, when multi-celled life forms started to take hold on Earth.

However, Russian geologists are unhappy their own title - the Vendian - which was coined in 1952, was not chosen.

No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos.

Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.

[…]

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC.

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."

The Roman Catholic bishop of Colorado Springs has issued a pastoral letter saying that American Catholics should not receive communion if they vote for politicians who defy church teaching by supporting abortion rights, same-sex marriage, euthanasia or stem-cell research.

The letter from Bishop Sheridan will undoubtedly intensify the debate, partly because it sounds in places like a political endorsement, Catholic observers said.

Bishop Sheridan wrote that the November elections were "critical" because for the first time since the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court legalizing abortion in 1973, the number of abortions was declining.

"We cannot allow the progress that has been made to be reversed by a pro-abortion president, Senate or House of Representatives," the bishop wrote.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who is heading a committee studying how bishops should relate to Catholic politicians, said Thursday in his archdiocesan newspaper that he did not favor using the eucharist as a "sanction."

Cardinal McCarrick wrote, "I do not favor a confrontation at the altar rail with the sacred body of the Lord Jesus in my hand."

[...]

The committee of bishops headed by Cardinal McCarrick is not expected to issue recommendations until after the presidential election.

Media Matters for America today launched an aggressive television ad campaign spotlighting highly controversial comments on the torture of Iraqi prisoners made by Rush Limbaugh, the political commentator with the largest radio listenership in the U.S. The 30-second ad contrasts the Bush Administration's denunciation of Iraqi prisoner torture with Limbaugh's May 4th statements comparing the torture to a college fraternity prank and people 'having a good time.'

Voiceover: 'Secretary Rumsfeld called the torture of Iraqis sadistic...cruel...'

Rumsfeld: 'fundamentally un-American.'

Voiceover: 'But here's what Rush Limbaugh said:'

Limbaugh: 'This is no different than what happens at the skull & bones initiation...I’m talking about people having a good time. These people -- you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of needing to blow some steam off?'

Voiceover: 'this is the most listened-to political commentator in America?'

'We first posted reports of Limbaugh's comments to our website, www.mediamatters.org,' said David Brock, president and CEO of Media Matters for America. 'His radio show reaches 20 million Americans each week, with many of these listeners considering him a legitimate news source. We are running the ad to spotlight whether Rush Limbaugh is a credible source of information.'

Media Matters for America's ad will run for four days in the Washington, DC area on major cable networks including CNBC, CNN, ESPN, FOX News and MSNBC.

Media Matters for America's website, currently features numerous analytical reports and full transcripts of Rush Limbaugh's Iraqi prisoner torture comments, including:

May 3, 2004 - Limbaugh likens the photos to 'anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage.'

May 5, 2004 - Limbaugh claims 'the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country.'

May 6, 2004 - Limbaugh calls the torture a 'brilliant maneuver' and the photos 'good old American pornography.'

May 10, 2004 - Limbaugh mimics barking in describing a photo of a nude Iraqi prisoner terrorized by vicious guard dogs [later announces that he was incorrect in asserting that the prisoner had not actually been attacked].

May 11, 2004 - Limbaugh equates brutal sodomizing of Iraqi prisoners to the 'cigar in the Oval Office.'

QUESTION: Scott, given that there are these other pictures out there, it's been acknowledged by the Secretary and you just mentioned, why not just release all of the pictures and all of the video clips that exist, just all at once, and stop the dribble, dribble that's, you know, one-by-one --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we are in close contact with the Pentagon on those issues, and I think the Pentagon is working to address those issues.

QUESTION: Is there discussion that, perhaps, it might be better to just release it all to the public?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the Pentagon is looking at all those issues. I mean, they have to take into account other considerations, as well. There are ongoing investigations, and the Pentagon has to look at those issues and take those issues into account.

QUESTION: Do you think it will be discussed this morning at this meeting? Has the President expressed his view as to whether it should all be released?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, I think that those are issues the Pentagon is working to address. And we remain in close contact with the Pentagon on those issues.

QUESTION: Can you give us a sense of -- I mean, obviously you said the President is -- hasn't necessarily seen them, but he knows what's in the pictures. What is his feeling, at this point, about releasing the pictures? Or is there just still an active discussion going on about whether or not --

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has made his views known, in terms of when it comes to the investigations that are ongoing. I think he's stated that. But, again, I think the Pentagon is the one who is working to address these matters. We're going to continue to stay in close contact with them on these issues. But as I said, the Pentagon has to look at other factors, as well, when they're considering these issues.

QUESTION: But it will be his decision whether or not to release them, right?

MR. McCLELLAN: These are issues the Pentagon is working to address, and they have to take into account other considerations. I think that's the way I would describe it.

I have never known a time in my life when America and its president were more hated around the world than today…. It's no wonder that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom 'Friends' right now. They're the only friends we have, and even they're leaving.

Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.

"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f -- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f -- ing dead.''

His brother-in-law and close friend, Alex Garwood, described how Tillman handled his duties when he became godfather to Garwood's son. He came to the ceremony dressed as a woman. Not as a religious commentary. He was doing a balancing act.

"We had two godfathers, no godmother,'' Garwood explained. And what NFL player turned Army Ranger wouldn't don drag to make that math work?

[…]

He was the same person who often talked late into the night with his linebackers coach at ASU, prying apart stereotypes about college football players and future soldiers.

"He talked about gays,'' Lyle Setencich, the former ASU assistant said. "He asked me, 'Could you coach gays?' " Setencich told Tillman yes. He could, and he had.

"The evidence of Chief Justice Moore's violations of the Canons of Judicial Ethics was sufficiently strong and convincing that the Court of the Judiciary could hardly have done otherwise than to impose the penalty of removal from office," the opinion said.

[…]

Special Supreme Court Justice Harry J. Wilters wrote a two-page addition to the court's opinion that cited six Bible verses on obeying the law.

Among the verses was I Peter 2:13: "Submit yourselves to every human institution for the sake of the Lord."

Who Would Jesus Bomb?