WORCESTER, Massachusetts (AP) -- A man was charged with stabbing two relatives after they allegedly criticized his table manners during Thanksgiving dinner.

Police said the fight broke out Thursday when Gonzalo Ocasio, 49, and his 18-year-old son, Gonzalo Jr., reprimanded Frank Palacious for picking at the turkey with his fingers, instead of slicing off pieces with a knife.

MONTE SERENO, California (AP) -- For six years, Alan and Bonnie Aerts transformed their Silicon Valley home into a Christmas wonderland, complete with surfing Santa, jumbo candy canes and a carol-singing chorus of mannequins.

Visitors loved it.

Last year, after NBC's "Weekend Today" featured the $150,000 display of custom-designed props, more than 1,500 cars prowled the Aertses' cul-de-sac in this upscale San Jose suburb each night.

This year, though, the merry menagerie stayed indoors. Instead, on the manicured lawn outside the couple's Tudor mansion stands a single tiding: a 10-foot-tall Grinch with green fuzz, rotting teeth, and beet-red eyeballs.

The Aertses erected the smirking giant to protest the couple across the street -- 16-year residents Le and Susan Nguyen, who initiated complaints to city officials that the display was turning the quiet neighborhood into a Disneyesque nightmare.

Alan Aerts, who makes sure the Grinch's spindly finger points directly to the Nguyens' house, says the complaints killed the exhibit. They also violated the Christmas spirit, he said.

Rush Limbaugh, taking a break from the legal deliberations of his drug rap and third divorce, set the hysterical tone. "I was stunned!" he told his listeners. "I literally could not believe what I had seen. ... At various places on the Net you can see the video of this, and she's buck naked, folks. I mean when they dropped the towel she's naked. You see enough of her back and rear end to know that she was naked. There's no frontal nudity in the thing, but I mean you don't need that. ...I mean, there are some guys with their kids that sit down to watch 'Monday Night Football.' "

[snip]

Like the Janet Jackson video before it, the new N.F.L. sex tape was now being rebroadcast around the clock so we could revel incessantly in the shock of it all. "People were so outraged they had to see it 10 times," joked Aaron Brown of CNN, which was no slacker in filling that need in the marketplace. And yet when I spoke to an F.C.C. enforcement spokesman after more than two days of such replays, the agency had not yet received a single complaint about the spot's constant recycling on other TV shows, among them the highly rated talk show "The View," where Ms. Sheridan's bare back had been merrily paraded at the child-friendly hour of 11 a.m.

The hypocrisy embedded in this tale is becoming a national running gag. As in the Super Bowl brouhaha, in which the N.F.L. maintained it had no idea that MTV might produce a racy halftime show, the league has denied any prior inkling of the salaciousness on tap this time - even though the spot featured the actress playing the sluttiest character in prime time's most libidinous series and was shot with the full permission of one of the league's teams in its own locker room. Again as in the Jackson case, we are also asked to believe that pro football is what Pat Buchanan calls "the family entertainment, the family sports show" rather than what it actually is: a Boschian jamboree of bumping-and-grinding cheerleaders, erectile-dysfunction pageantry and, as Don Imus puts it, "wife-beating drug addicts slamming the hell out of each other" on the field.

This is so disgusting I can scarcely contain myself. Former State Representative Talmadge Heflin, having lost the count, having lost the recount in his run against Hubert Vo, has decided to contest the election in the Texas House. The House is of course Republican-dominated. Its Speaker, Tom Craddick, can appoint a committee, invested with subpoena power, to investigate the matter, and he has already stated that Vo will never be seated in "his" House. In fairness, Craddick, pro forma, replaced Heflin in his committee chairmanship. But we all know where this one is going: a legitimate, demonstrable electoral victory by a Democrat is on its way to being summarily overturned by fiat. Some democracy we have here!

Vo won the election, by 32 votes... certified by our oh-so-Republican county clerk. If Vo is not seated in the House, then we have a totalitarian one-party government in Texas... a Republican "right to rule" that supersedes any popular vote to the contrary. Thomas Jefferson and Sam Houston are both spinning in their graves.

Tim Gale became a believer one day last January. He was prowling the Internet when he came across a video of one of the World Trade Center towers collapsing on Sept. 11, 2001. It was likely a video Gale had seen before, but this footage was in slow motion. As Gale watched the tower’s 110 floors begin to crumble, he noticed something unusual.

Right before the tower dropped into a cloud of debris, the windows on the upper levels of the towers blew outwards, one floor at a time, like clockwork. That wasn’t caused by the plane slamming into the tower or the ensuing fire, Gale told himself.

There were bombs in the World Trade Center.

"It blew my head off," says Gale. "I started searching like crazy."

What Gale found, in countless websites, books and films, was a vast network of information questioning the official story of what happened on Sept. 11. The 42-year-old Boulder resident was inundated with decades-old memos, foreign newspaper clippings, engineering studies and national-defense policies. And he discovered the collapse of the World Trade Center was just the beginning–he believes he’s witnessing the collapse of the American society.

"I was being confronted with the raw fact that the U.S. government was complicit in the mass murder of its own citizens for geopolitical purposes," says Gale. "It’s too much to bear in the confines of your mind."

Michigan Republicans plan to attack Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm in the next gubernatorial race on the same moral issues that helped President George W. Bush win re-election Tuesday over Democratic Sen. John Kerry.


"The 2006 race has begun today, and we are laying the values debate at Gov. Granholm's doorstep," state GOP Executive Director Greg McNeilly declared Thursday, at a postelection conference of pundits and political leaders.

McNeilly added, "She's wrong on abortion, she's wrong on gay marriage and she's wrong on the war on terror." McNeilly referred to a brief televised interview last week in which Granholm said women would like to hear Bush apologize for mistakes made in the Iraq war.

He said Republicans need to get the Michigan Bush voters, who outnumbered the Granholm voters of 2002, "back out in 2006. They need to realize the threat she is to their beliefs." The GOP plans to pursue the same themes in running against U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow in two years.

Although Granholm opposes gay marriage -- but supports civil unions -- she opposed Proposal 2, a constitutional ban on gay marriage, calling it unnecessary and divisive. Proposal 2 was approved by Michigan voters Tuesday by a wide margin.

McNeilly's remarks drew sharp responses from a Granholm staffer and Democratic state party Chairman Mark Brewer.

"It's just a continuation of personal attacks that they've tried on her. None of it has worked," Brewer said. "Michigan voters know her better than they did John Kerry. Voters know her and trust her and like her."

Brewer said attacking Granholm on moral values would backfire.

Granholm's spokeswoman, Liz Boyd, said McNeilly's remarks were sour grapes by the state GOP and its leader, Betsy DeVos.

"The Republican Party apparatus lost at the local level, the state level and the Legislature to Democratic candidates who vowed to fight for good-paying jobs, improved education and access to affordable health care," Boyd said. "They still don't get that those are the issues that really matter to Michigan voters."

She added, "There's something wrong when people are so vicious and mean-spirited on the very day when their own party leaders are calling for unity."

An international election observer mission - from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Parliament, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe - released a preliminary report on Monday declaring that the election did not meet democratic standards.

The observers' findings were seconded by Republican Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Citing the disturbing fact that official results diverged sharply from a range of surveys of voters at polling places, Lugar said, "A concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or cooperation of governmental authorities."

Other prominent Western observers were unsparing in their criticism of the state's conduct of the election.

"Fundamental flaws in Ukraine's presidential election process subverted its legitimacy," the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, sponsored by the Democratic Party in the United States, declared in its preliminary report. The institute, cited "systematic intimidation, overt manipulation and blatant fraud" that were "designed to achieve a specific outcome irrespective of the will of the people."

This reporter was unable to reach Senator Lugar regarding the inconsistency of official election results and exit polls in the USA; the intimidation of minority voters in Florida and Ohio; nor the failure to count two million ballots cast, half by African-American voters, in America's first post-democratic election held earlier this month.

Eastern bloc observers noted that balloting in Ohio, New Mexico and Florida did not meet Ukrainian standards, but applauded America's attempt to restore democratic institutions after the overthrow of elected government in 2000.

f America's secular liberals think they have it rough now, just wait till the Second Coming.

The "Left Behind" series, the best-selling novels for adults in the U.S., enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a born-again Christian. The world's Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, along with many Catholics and Unitarians, are heaved into everlasting fire: "Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and screeching."

Gosh, what an uplifting scene!

If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.

• 48% of adults believe that the earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs


• Only 53% of adults believe that humans as we know them developed from earlier species of animals


• 65% know that the father's gene decides whether a baby is a boy or a girl. This means that over one in three men may believe Henry VIII was right to blame his wives for his lack of male offspring.


• And here's the kicker: 22% of American adults believe the sun revolves around the earth.
  

In a deal to let 175 of President Bush's nominees take office, an adviser to new Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Senate's staunchest opponent of a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, will be named to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

For months Senate Republicans had refused to take up, or even hold a hearing, on the nomination of Gregory Jaczko, Reid's adviser on nuclear issues.

In turn, Reid, who has pledged to try to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, had blocked the Bush nominations.

In negotiations just before Congress recessed during the weekend, an agreement was worked out: the White House promised Jaczko would be appointed to a limited two-year term while Congress was in recess, and Reid lifted his hold on the package of Bush nominations, which zipped through the Senate.

Between spoonfuls of cereal, a little girl in pajamas looks across the kitchen table and innocently asks her mother some chilling questions: "What if something happens? Should I stay where I am and wait for you?"

She may not understand the implications, but she's talking about terrorism. Now the government wants parents to provide answers.

In a series of new TV, radio and print ads, the Department of Homeland Security is encouraging parents to talk to their children about what to do if disaster strikes.
The public service ads, unveiled by the Ad Council on Monday, are aimed at parents. Stations are being encouraged to air them only during adult programming. "It is certainly not our goal that these run during Saturday morning cartoons," said Kathy Crosby of the Ad Council.

But some experts say the ads could frighten children who see or hear them. The ads could make children worry that a terrorist attack is likely, said child psychologist David Fassler of Burlington, Vt. "Parents need to emphasize that's simply not the case," he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said parents talk to their kids about other issues, including crime and speaking to strangers.

"We don't think this will be any different than anything else parents have been asked to do for a long, long time," Ridge said. "This is only a difficult subject if the parents make it a difficult subject."

The new campaign is part of a government effort to get families to plan for emergencies. In one ad, three siblings ask whether they should go to a neighbor's house and how to keep in touch if the phones are out.

An adult voiceover says: "There's no reason not to have a plan in case of a terrorist attack. And some extremely good reasons why you should." It refers parents to www.ready.gov for information.

This is one of the nicest stories I have read in a while. And to think that some idiots in Congress want to make it easy again for commercial fishermen to kill dolphins in their nets.

From Reuters:
Lifesavers Rob Howes, his 15-year-old daughter Niccy, Karina Cooper and Helen Slade were swimming 100 metres (300 feet) off Ocean Beach near Whangarei on New Zealand's North Island when the dolphins herded them -- apparently to protect them from a shark.

"They started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," Howes told the New Zealand Press Association.

Howes tried to drift away from the group, but two of the bigger dolphins herded him back just as he spotted a three-meter (nine feet) great white shark swimming towards the group.

"I just recoiled. It was only about 2 meters (6 feet) away from me, the water was crystal clear and it was as clear as the nose on my face," Howes said.

"They had corralled us up to protect us," he said.

The lifesavers spent the next 40 minutes surrounded by the dolphins before they could safely swim back to shore.

NOTE FROM JOHN IN DC: It's obvious why Congress wants to kill them. Saving lives is very blue state.

Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish.

But you should hear what he's saying in private.

Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity.

His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic ``armageddon.''

Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach's presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, ``it struck me how extreme he was - much more, it seemed to me, than in public.''

Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that ``we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.''

The chance we'll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe.

In a nutshell, Roach's argument is that America's record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants.

The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded.

Less a case of ``Armageddon,'' maybe, than of a ``Perfect Storm.''

Roach marshalled alarming facts to support his argument.

To finance its current account deficit with the rest of the world, he said, America has to import $2.6 billion in cash. Every working day.

That is an amazing 80 percent of the entire world's net savings.

Sustainable? Hardly.

Meanwhile, he notes that household debt is at record levels.

Twenty years ago the total debt of U.S. households was equal to half the size of the economy.

Today the figure is 85 percent.

The U.S. economy has powered ahead in large part because of the amazing productivity of America's science and technology. That research is done largely by foreign students. The National Science Board has found that 38 percent of doctorate holders in America's science and engineering work force are foreign-born.

WE DON'T STUDY SCIENCE

Foreigners make up more than half of our science and engineering students. The dirty little secret about America's scientific edge is that it's largely produced by foreigners and immigrants.

Americans don't do science anymore. The NSB reported this year that the United States now ranks 17th (among nations surveyed) in the proportion of college students majoring in science and engineering. In 1975 the United States ranked third. The recent decline in foreign applications is having a direct effect on science programs. Three years ago MIT had 385 computer-science majors. Today there are 240. Similar trends exist at Stanford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of California, Berkeley.

Americans do not believe that humans evolved, and the vast majority says that even if they evolved, God guided the process. Just 13 percent say that God was not involved. But most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Support for evolution is more heavily concentrated among those with more education and among those who attend religious services rarely or not at all.

There are also differences between voters who supported Kerry and those who supported Bush: 47 percent of John Kerry’s voters think God created humans as they are now, compared with 67 percent of Bush voters.

[snip]

Overall, about two-thirds of Americans want creationism taught along with evolution. Only 37 percent want evolutionism replaced outright.

More than half of Kerry voters want creationism taught alongside evolution. Bush voters are much more willing to want creationism to replace evolution altogether in a curriculum (just under half favor that), and 71 percent want it at least included.

"Protection of marriage" is now the watchword for many activists fighting to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying. Some conservatives, however, say marriage in America began unraveling long before the latest gay-rights push and are pleading for a fresh, soul-searching look at the institution.

"When you talk about protecting marriage, you need to talk about divorce," said Bryce Christensen, a Southern Utah University professor who writes frequently about family issues.

While Christensen doesn't oppose the campaign to enact state and federal bans on gay marriage, he worries it's distracting from immediate threats to marriage's place in society.

"If those initiatives are part of a broader effort to reaffirm lifetime fidelity in marriage, they're worthwhile," he said. "If they're isolated - if we don't address cohabitation and casual divorce and deliberate childlessness - then I think they're futile and will be brushed aside."

At a security checkpoint recently at the Fort Lauderdale airport, Patti LuPone, the singer and actress, recalled, she was instructed to remove articles of clothing. "I took off my belt; I took off my clogs; I took off my leather jacket," she said. "But when the screener said, 'Now take off your shirt,' I hesitated. I said, 'But I'll be exposed.' " When she persisted in her complaints, she said, she was barred from her flight.

Heather L. Maurer, a business executive from Washington, had a similar experience at Logan Airport in Boston recently. And a few weeks ago, Jenepher Field, 71, who walks with the aid of a cane, was subjected to a breast pat-down at the airport outside Kansas City, Mo.

These women and a good many others, both frequent and occasional travelers, say they are furious about recent changes in airport security that have increased both the number and the intensity of pat-downs at the nation's 450 commercial airports. And they are not keeping quiet.

In dozens of interviews, women across the country say they were humiliated by the searches, often done in view of other passengers, and many said they had sharply reduced their air travel as a result.

[snip]

With the new rules, security personnel are given more latitude to select whomever they want for secondary screenings, whenever they want, and to conduct more intrusive pat-downs and more thorough examinations of carry-on bags. In both cases, travelers have the right to seek a private area, and women can request female inspectors.

A provision in the new rules - which says that a screener's "visual observation" of a passenger is enough to order a secondary screening - seems to single out women, something that many women searched attribute to a belief that bras are good places to conceal nonmetallic explosives.

The provision states, "T.S.A. policy is that screeners are to use the back of the hand when screening sensitive body areas, which include the breasts (females only), genitals and buttocks."

"Did it turn out that, by reason of the separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than they were in the United States of America? I don't think so."

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work."
-- Adolph Hitler, speech to the Reichstag, 1936

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator."
-- Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pg. 46

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job."
-- George W. Bush, Lancaster County, July 2004

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East." -- George W. Bush

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."
-- Aristotle

Fundamentalism isn't about religion. It's about power.
-- Salman Rushdie

"Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."
-- Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Edwardsville, Illinois. September 11, 1858. [ironic date isn't it?????]