Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

The Jewish Grinch who stole Christmas

Dec 8, 2005
by Burt Prelutsky

Although it seems a long time ago, it really wasn’t, that people who came here from other places made every attempt to fit in. Assimilation wasn’t a threat to anyone; it was what the Statue of Liberty represented. E pluribus unum, one out of many, was our motto. The world’s melting pot was our nickname. It didn’t mean that any group of people had to check their customs, culture or cuisine, at the door. It did mean that they, and especially their children, learned English, and that they learned to live and let live.

That has changed, you may have noticed. And I blame my fellow Jews. When it comes to pushing the multicultural, anti-Christian, agenda, you find Jewish judges, Jewish journalists, and the ACLU, at the forefront.


Being Jewish, I should report, Christmas was never celebrated by my family. But what was there not to like about the holiday? To begin with, it provided a welcome two week break from school. The decorated trees were nice, the lights were beautiful, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was a great movie, and some of the best Christmas songs were even written by Jews.

But the dirty little secret in America is that anti-Semitism is no longer a problem in society; it’s been replaced by a rampant anti-Christianity. For example, the hatred spewed towards George W. Bush has far less to do with his policies than it does with his religion. The Jews voice no concern when a Bill Clinton or a John Kerry makes a big production out of showing up at black Baptist churches or posing with Rev. Jesse Jackson because they understand that’s just politics. They only object to politicians attending church for religious reasons.

Gay or straight, you should at least pick up the phone and let local Ford dealers know that you won't even consider buying a Ford after this. Why should straight people care? Because the same AFA fucks that have successfully intimidated Ford on the gay issue are also attacking straight rights—they’re the same assholes who have successfully intimidated retailers like Target into denying women access to morning-after pills. They’re the same assholes trying to convince the Feds not to release a vaccine for two strains of HPV , the virus that can cause cervical cancer in women. The HPV vaccine—already tested and 100% effective!—could save thousands of women’s lives every year. The AFA is fighting it.

Across the country, officials are trying multiple methods to ensure that touch-screen voting machines can record and count votes without falling prey to software bugs, hackers, malicious insiders or other ills.

These are not theoretical problems - in some states they have led to lost or miscounted votes.

One of the biggest concerns - the frequent inability of computerized ballots to produce a written receipt of a vote - has been addressed or is being tackled in most states.

An October report from the Government Accountability Office predicted that steps to improve the reliability of electronic voting "are unlikely to have a significant effect" in the 2006 off-year elections, partly because certification procedures remain a work in progress.

"There's not a lot of precedents in dealing with these electronic systems, so people are slowly figuring out the best way to do this," said Thad E. Hall, a political scientist at the University of Utah and co-author of "Point, Click, and Vote: The Future of Internet Voting."

In North Carolina, more stringent requirements - which include placing the machines' software code in escrow for examination in case of a problem - have led one supplier, Diebold Inc., to say it will withdraw from the state, where about 20 counties use Diebold voting machines.

A different type of showdown is brewing in California, where Secretary of State Bruce McPherson says he might force makers of the machines to prove their systems can withstand attacks from a hacker. One such test on a Diebold system - Diebold machines were blamed for voting disruptions in a 2004 California primary - is planned.

The state has been negotiating details with Harri Hursti, a security expert from Finland who uncovered severe flaws in a Diebold system used in Leon County, Fla. (He demonstrated how vote results could be changed, then made screens flash "Are we having fun yet?")

“I’ve absolutely had it with the dishonesty,” the insider told RAW STORY. Blasting Wally O’Dell, the current president of Diebold, the whistleblower went on to explain behind-the-scenes tactics of the company and its officers.

“There’s a lot of pressure in the corporation to make the numbers: `We don’t tell you how to do it, but do it.’ [O’Dell is] probably the number one culprit putting pressure on people,” the source said.

Diebold spokesman David Bear rebuts the charges. “Diebold has a sterling reputation in the industry," Bear said. "It’s a 144-year-old company and is considered one of the best companies in the industry."

Previous revelations from the whistleblower have included evidence that Diebold’s upper management and top government officials knew of backdoor software in Diebold’s central tabulator before the 2004 election, but ignored urgent warnings—such as a Homeland Security alert posted on the Internet.

“This is a very dangerous precedent that needs to be stopped—that’s the corporate takeover of elections,” the source warned. “The majority of election directors don’t understand the gravity of what they’re dealing with. The bottom line is who is going to tamper with an election? A lot of people could, but they assume that no one will.”

Concerns about Georgia, Ohio elections

The insider harbors suspicions that Diebold may be involved in tampering with elections through its army of employees and independent contractors. The 2002 gubernatorial election in Georgia raised serious red flags, the source said.

“Shortly before the election, ten days to two weeks, we were told that the date in the machine was malfunctioning,” the source recalled. “So we were told 'Apply this patch in a big rush.’” Later, the Diebold insider learned that the patches were never certified by the state of Georgia, as required by law.

“Also, the clock inside the system was not fixed,” said the insider. “It’s legendary how strange the outcome was; they ended up having the first Republican governor in who knows when and also strange outcomes in other races. I can say that the counties I worked in were heavily Democratic and elected a Republican.”

In Georgia’s 2002 Senate race, for example, nearly 60 percent of the state’s electorate by county switched party allegiances between the primaries and the general election.

[snip]

The whistleblower is also skeptical of results from the November 2005 Ohio election, in which 88 percent of voters used touch screens and the outcome on some propositions changed as much as 40 percent from pre-election exit polls.

“Amazing,” the Diebold insider said.

[snip]

“My feeling having been really deep inside the company is that initially Diebold, being a very conservative and Republican company, felt that if they controlled an election company, they could have great influence over the outcome,” the source, a registered independent, said.

“Does that mean fixing elections? Not necessarily, but if your people are in election departments and they are biased toward Republicans, you will have an influence…I think this is what they were buying, the positioning. Obviously screwing with the software would be a homerun—and I do think that was part of their recipe for getting into the election business. But the public got involved and said 'Hey, what’s going on?' That pulled the sheet off what their plan was with these paperless voting machines.”

[snip]

Neither the TSX nor the older TS6 election equipment systems used by Diebold were designed to be retrofitted with paper trails. “The TSX was designed and brought to market after the paper trail issue erupted, yet it was introduced as a paperless system. But the uproar became so great… The public forced Diebold to put printers on their machines.” Adding printers to existing computer hardware together poses challenges.

The TS6 machines can’t be retrofitted with paper at all, leaving 35,000 voters in Maryland and Georgia to rely on paperless, faith-based voting.

Even if the blank paper problem could be solved, there are other serious problems with some TSX equipment. “The system that was offered to San Diego was purely experimental—the TSX and the electronic poll book, the check-in device,” the Diebold insider stated. “Voters couldn’t access the system to vote with the electronic poll book if the batteries died.” The high rate of breakdowns involving access cards for the poll book caused major problems, the source added. “The interesting part about this device is that it had never been used before. That was probably not certified.”

San Diego has since warehoused its TSX system, pending a decision by the state on whether to recertify. San Diego County now uses Diebold optical scanners—but those pose security problems as well.

There's also more than a slight tinge of boosterism going on here, in the face of "Brokeback" opening against "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." [Culture and Family Institute director Robert] Knight links box-office success with moral authority. "You know, that's going to be quite a contrast," he says. "You're going to have a roll-out of a film that's going to be a blockbuster, and it reflects basic Christian values, going up against a limited release of a movie that mocks traditional morality. And I'll betcha I know which one is going to win.

"I think Ang Lee is off his rocker if he thinks he can have the same commercial success with two cowboys instead of a cowboy and a cowgirl, as other movies do."

After much reflection, my feelings of disappointment and anger have not dissipated, except now these feelings have gone beyond my personal dismay to a larger, graver sense of loss for our country, a reckoning of the damage that the president's conduct has done to the proud legacy of his presidency and, ultimately, an accounting of the impact of his actions on our democracy and its moral foundations.

The implications for our country are so serious that I feel a responsibility to my constituents in Connecticut, as well as to my conscience, to voice my concerns forthrightly and publicly. And I can think of no more appropriate place to do that than on this great Senate floor.

[snip]

As Teddy Roosevelt once explained, "My power vanishes into thin air the instant that my fellow citizens, who are straight and honest, cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest. That is all the strength that I have," Roosevelt said.

Sadly, with his deception, the president may have weakened the great power and strength that he possesses, of which President Roosevelt spoke.

I know this is a concern that may of my colleagues share, which is to say that the president has hurt his credibility and therefore perhaps his chances of moving his policy agenda forward.

Mel Gibson, whose The Passion of the Christ drew charges of anti-semitism, is reportedly developing a TV miniseries set against the backdrop of the Holocaust.

The Daily Variety reported yesterday that Gibson's production company is involved in a project to get on screen the real-life love story of Flory A Van Beek, a Dutch Jew whose non-Jewish boyfriend sheltered her from the Nazis.

The report hastened to add that the project was still in its very early stages, and that it was not even certain if Gibson's name would be publicly attached to the finished product. Furthermore, a formal go-ahead was still months away and the series would not be broadcast on the US ABC network until the 2006-07 season at the earliest.

Critics will be sure to point out that Gibson's father, Hutton, has been quoted questioning whether the Holocaust actually happened and asserting that there were more Jews in Europe after the second world war than ever before.
Even though Mel himself told an interviewer in 2004 that some of his best friends "have numbers on their arms" and that the "second world war killed tens of millions of people; some of them were Jews in concentration camps", Holocaust scholars have criticised him for failing to disassociate himself clearly from his father's views.

ABC's senior vice-president for movies for television, Quinn Taylor, has already fired a pre-emptive strike against critics, saying, "I would tell them to shut up and wait to see the movie, and then judge," Taylor told Variety. "I'm not about to rewrite history (with the movie). I'm going to explore an amazing love story that we can all learn from and, hopefully, be inspired by."

...the two Ford execs who negotiated the anti-gay secret deal with the gay-hating extremist groups, Ziad Ojakli and David Leitch, are actually former top officials in the Bush White House. And now we find out, below, that one of those same top Bush/Ford officials is also running secret meetings out of Ford's own offices in support of Bush's far-right Supreme Court nominees.

Putting aside the question of who this Ford employee actually works for, Ford or the White House, is anyone seeing a larger pattern here?

Maybe you folks ought to give Mr. Ujakli a call here in DC and let him know you're not amused by Ford having become an adjunct of the Bush White House: 202-962-5400

But right now, I want to bring in Christopher Hitchens. He's a writer for “Vanity Fair.” And from Lynchburg, Virginia, let's talk to Mat Staver. He's the president of the Liberty Counsel, which started the Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign.

Christopher, I want to start with you.

I guess whenever these issues come up, my question always is, what is the big deal? If Newport News wants to have a Christmas tree, or Pensacola, Florida, wants to have a manger in front of city hall, who does that harm?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, “VANITY FAIR”: Who does it harm if they call it tree of illumination?

I mean, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without this argument. And I have to say, I congratulate you on finding a Mr. Sage for a Yuletide touch.

But he is dead wrong in the main thing he said, which is that this is our how our country was founded. As he ought to know, the country was founded on a document that specifically separates church from state.

SCARBOROUGH: What document is that, Christopher?

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: That's the United States Constitution.

SCARBOROUGH: Separates church and state. Where does it say that in the Constitution?

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: Very particularly in its first—very particularly, in its rather brilliantly and beautifully and clearly written First Amendment.

Now, in Lynchburg....

SCARBOROUGH: Is it?

HITCHENS: ... as in Washington, D.C., there are large numbers of public buildings, lavishly financed, usually, in fact, invariably, tax exempt, sometimes even government subsidized by the—what do we call it, faith-based program.

They are called churches. People can go there if they want to have religious ceremony. They can put up hoardings on their land which say it's Jesus' birthday or Christ has risen, if it's Easter, anything like that. You can't stop them. They do it all the time, and they are very welcome.

I would like, however, to be able to go to Union Station and not be told that I am a Christian over the loud speaker all the time, or, indeed, to Wal-Mart or Target or 7/Eleven and not have an incessant one-party state month of permanent Christian music and propaganda. I think that's annoying and offensive, and also...

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: But, Christopher, though, there's a long history...

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second.

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: I promise only one thing. I promise you, I would say that if I was a Christian. I am not. But if I was one, I would not want it imposed on other people.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, OK. Well, and, again, it's been imposed...

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: And certainly not in this ugly—not in this ugly, vulgar, boring way?

SCARBOROUGH: It's ugly? What is ugly and vulgar and boring, Christmas trees?

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: Don't you find the tinsel and the incessant stuff on the radio and the TV, don't you find it gets you down? Don't you find it's cheap and tinselly? I certainly do.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, you know what?

If it's cheap, that cheapness has been a part of American culture for 200 years. You talk about the separation of church and state.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: I want to read you a couple of quotes.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second. Hold on, Christopher. I will let you respond, but let me talk.

Here you have, in April 1787, Benjamin Franklin talking to the Constitutional Congress, saying: “I have lived a long time, sir, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this, that God governs in the affairs of man, and, if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, how can a great empire rise without his aid? The father of our country,” he said, “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

I could read you 100 quotes...

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: Yes, you could.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: ... of founding fathers talking about the importance of religion and...

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: There is not a word about Christianity in the...

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: I could get you quotes, though, from these founding fathers that did talk about Christianity.

HITCHENS: George Washington...

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: George Washington was a deist. Benjamin Franklin, whatever he felt obliged to say in public, was a nonbeliever.

(CROSSTALK)

MATHEW STAVER, PRESIDENT, LIBERTY COUNSEL: The problem that we have during Christmas, Joe...

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Mat, we are falling back on the deist argument. That happens an awful lot.

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: Not one word about Christianity in the founding documents, not one word.

(CROSSTALK)

STAVER: Joe, this is exactly the reason why we have this problem during Christmas. There is a war on Christmas.

Liberty Counsel represents Nathan Sage. And we are working with him to try to....

HITCHENS: Represents Jerry Falwell, you mean.

(CROSSTALK)

STAVER: ... reverse this ridiculous thing in Newport News, Virginia.

In Newport News, Virginia, they celebrate everything. They have got Santa Clauses. They have got the poinsettias. They have the snowmen. They even have what appears to everyone who looks at this a Christmas tree, a triangle looking tree that is decorated, but, lo and behold, because it has the name Christmas attached to it, even though it's otherwise a secular symbol, they have a bias to censor that out and change it to the tree of celebration.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Mat, you know—hold on a second, Mat.

Let's bring a little light to this, instead of all heat. Let's bring a little light to this conversation and talk about trends.

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: Light only comes from heat.

SCARBOROUGH: OK. Thank you so much.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Christopher.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on.

Guys, stop. God bless us all. Just stop and let's have a meaningful conversation.

HITCHENS: Well, don't invite me on and tell me to keep...

SCARBOROUGH: Instead of people talking on top of each other.

HITCHENS: Don't invite me on and tell me to keep quiet. Don't do that.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, Christopher, why don't you let other people talk for a second, OK?

HITCHENS: I came here to talk, not to listen to you. You invited me on for my opinions, not to listen to yours.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: OK. Well, you know what, Christopher? I will never make that mistake again.

HITCHENS: Fair enough.

SCARBOROUGH: Mat, here's—here's the question, OK?

HITCHENS: Merry Christmas.

SCARBOROUGH: Merry Christmas and good night.

Mat, let's have a conversation here for a second.

STAVER: Thank you.

SCARBOROUGH: You are sitting here talking, and other Christians have been complaining about how there's been a war on Christmas for a long time.

But you have got to admit, there has been progress made. If you look at Macy's, if you look at Lowe's, if you look at what happens, like the city of Boston, if you look at the U.S. Congress...

STAVER: Exactly.

SCARBOROUGH: ... they are starting to bring the word Christmas back in these celebrations.

Now, for me personally, this doesn't really mean a whole lot. But, at the same time, it bugs me when people are so politically correct that they want to take the word Christ out of Christmas.

HITCHENS: It's not a matter...

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: So, will you admit that things are improving?

STAVER: Oh, no question. They are improving.

But they are improving because people are speaking up, because they are tired of this onslaught against Christmas. They are tired of the trend of the ACLU and others that espouse the views like Christopher that simply want to eliminate God and religion from the public square. And I think it is symbolic of what's happened to take a Christmas tree and rename it to something other than a Christmas tree.

Now, Boston, I applaud them, because, tonight, they lit not a holiday tree, which they intended to do about a week ago, but a Christmas tree. And that's what the mayor says it will always be now, as long as he is mayor. And I applaud him. I applaud Speaker Dennis Hastert for doing the same thing.

That's why we launched our Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign. And our Web site at LC.org, we have a memo...

SCARBOROUGH: All right.

HITCHENS: So, this is just a broadcast for Jerry Falwell now...

(CROSSTALK)

STAVER: ... that talks about what the law is.

SCARBOROUGH: All right. All right. OK. Hold on. Let's...

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: I am supposed to just sit.

SCARBOROUGH: OK, Christopher, go ahead.

HITCHENS: I am supposed to just sit and listen to a broadcast for Jerry Falwell from Lynchburg. Is that right?

SCARBOROUGH: Go ahead.

HITCHENS: OK?

SCARBOROUGH: Go ahead.

HITCHENS: The tree long predates Christmas.

There's been a festival of light, in fact, and of trees, Yule logs trees—that's where they're all from Scandinavia—since the winter solstice was first thought of, long before any mythical event in the Middle East, a birth that the date of which even the Bible cannot get right and repeatedly gets wrong.

That—that's fine. People can celebrate it all they like. It would be impossible to live in this country and not notice that there are lots of Christians who like to celebrate the birthday of the person they believe is their savior. You cannot possibly escape it. But we don't want it to enjoy any public preference or subsidy.

And the Constitution says that we don't have to. And the progress you are talking about with this guy from Lynchburg...

SCARBOROUGH: But it doesn't say that, Christopher.

HITCHENS: This guy from Lynchburg defines progress as teaching junk science to our children, and leaving us the mockery of the world by pretending that we did not evolve.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second.

We are not going to debate intelligent—we are not going to debate intelligent design right here, but, Christopher...

HITCHENS: That's progress to him. And he's a front man—and he's a front man—and he's a front man—and he's a front man for the fat-faced reverend...

SCARBOROUGH: OK, Christopher. Hold on.

(CROSSTALK)

STAVER: Joe, I think Christopher is really...

HITCHENS: ... who applauded the destruction of the World Trade Center.

SCARBOROUGH: OK. OK. You know what? You know what?

HITCHENS: Front man Falwell.

SCARBOROUGH: We—this, unfortunately, is—is now moving into intelligent design.

HITCHENS: Falwell said the World Trade Center was brought down by God.

SCARBOROUGH: I want to thank you for being with us, Christopher.

A University of Kansas religious studies professor is recovering from a beating he says was based on his opposition to Christian fundamentalists.

Paul Mirecki told Douglas County sheriff's deputies he was beaten early Monday morning on the side of a rural road outside Lawrence by two men who'd been tailgating him in a large pickup truck. Mirecki told the Lawrence Journal-World his attackers made references to the controversial remarks made on the Internet denouncing Christian Conservatives and Catholics.

The men punched him about the head and shoulders and struck him with a metal object, he said.

Mirecki recently wrote online that he planned to teach intelligent design as mythology in an upcoming course. He wrote it would be a "nice slap" in the "big fat face" of fundamentalists.

The remarks caused an uproar, Mirecki apologized, and the university announced last week the class would be canceled.

Tuesday, deputies circulated descriptions of the attackers and their vehicle, the report said.

One-fifth of Americans still believe that the Sun goes around the Earth, instead of the other way around. And only about half know that humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs.

The problem isn't just inadequate science (and math) teaching in the schools, however. A larger problem is the arrogance of the liberal arts, the cultural snootiness of, of ... well, of people like me - and probably you.

What do I mean by that? In the U.S. and most of the Western world, it's considered barbaric in educated circles to be unfamiliar with Plato or Monet or Dickens, but quite natural to be oblivious of quarks and chi-squares. A century ago, Einstein published his first paper on relativity - making 1905 as important a milestone for world history as 1066 or 1789 - but relativity has yet to filter into the consciousness of otherwise educated people.

"The great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the Western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had," C. P. Snow wrote in his classic essay, "The Two Cultures."

The counterargument is that we can always hire technicians in Bangalore, while it's Shakespeare and Goethe who teach us the values we need to harness science for humanity. There's something to that. If President Bush were about to attack Iraq all over again, he would be better off reading Sophocles - to appreciate the dangers of hubris - than studying the science of explosives.

Suddenly in June the AFA called off their threatened boycott because local Ford dealers had contacted the national Ford office and, apparently, suggested Ford might be amenable to working out a deal. Now we find out that Ford is pulling its gay ads and that Ford even tells the Advocate that the AFA's press release claiming credit for this entire thing is accurate.

Ford wants to dance with bigots, that's fine. But you don't get to do that in the year 2005 and remain a prosperous company in America.

I want phone numbers and email contacts for all of Ford's top executives and public relations people. Go to it folks.

You are probably unaware that Ford Motor Company is a major supporter of the homosexual movement, including homosexual marriage.

From redefining family to include homosexual marriage, to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda, to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality, to sponsoring a "commitment (marriage) ceremony", to sponsoring Gay Pride Parades, Ford leads the way.

To let you see Ford's support, we developed the BoycottFord.com site.

I urge you to take action today. Sign the petition to boycott Ford. Call your local Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo, Jaguar, Mazda and/or Land Rover dealer (all are part of Ford Motor Company) and inform them you will not be buying a Ford product until they stop their promotion of the homosexual movement and homosexual marriage.

Be sure to forward this information to your friends and family. They will be as surprised as you to learn of Ford’s extensive promotion of homosexuality.

Click here to go to BoycottFord.com and take the action listed on the right hand side (signing the pledge and calling your local dealer). Remember, calling your local dealer is very important. Please be polite. If the dealer wants more information, refer him to the BoycottFord.com page.

Sincerely,

Don

Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

A spokesman played down the role the boycott had in the company's decision, saying that the ads were eliminated as a cost-cutting measure. "As they begin planning their marketing for next year," the spokesman, Mike Moran, said Monday, "they've streamlined their budgets."

FOX Poll: Bush Approval Rises; Public Split on Pre-War Intel

...some Americans think there are still weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A 42 percent plurality thinks Iraq had weapons before the war and moved or destroyed them, while 28 percent think there were no WMD at all. Almost one in five (19 percent) think there are still WMD in Iraq.

Although White House officials said many federal departments had contributed to the document, its relentless focus on the theme of victory strongly reflected a new voice in the administration: Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who joined the NSC staff as a special adviser in June and has closely studied public opinion on the war.

Despite the president's oft-stated aversion to polls, Feaver was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented to administration officials their analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believed it would ultimately succeed.

That finding, which is questioned by other political scientists, was clearly behind the victory theme in the speech and the plan, in which the word appears six times in the table of contents alone, including sections titled "Victory in Iraq Is a Vital U.S. Interest" and "Our Strategy for Victory Is Clear."

"This is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency," said Christopher Gelpi, Feaver's colleague at Duke and co-author of the research on American tolerance for casualties. "The Pentagon doesn't need the president to give a speech and post a document on the White House Web site to know how to fight the insurgents. The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion."

Feaver was recruited by the White House this year as public support for the war declined steadily in the face of mounting casualties and costs. A Newsweek poll this month showed just 30 percent of those interviewed said they approved of the president's handling of the war, while 65 percent disapproved -- an almost exact reversal of the numbers in May 2003, shortly after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Based on their study of poll results from the first two years of the war, Gelpi, Feaver and Jason Reifler, then a Duke graduate student, took issue with what they described as the conventional wisdom since the Vietnam War -- that Americans will support military operations only if U.S. casualties are few.

They found that public tolerance for the human cost of combat depended on two factors: a belief that the war was a worthy cause and, even more important, a belief that the war was likely to be successful.

In their paper "Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq," to be published soon in the journal International Security, Feaver and his colleagues wrote: "Mounting casualties did not produce a reflexive collapse in public support. The Iraq case suggests that under the right conditions, the public will continue to support military operations even when they come with a relatively high human cost."

The role of Feaver in preparing the strategy document came to light through a quirk of technology. In a portion of the document usually hidden from public view but accessible with a few keystrokes, the plan posted on the White House Web site showed the document's originator, or "author" in the software's designation, to be "feaver-p."

According to Matt Rozen, a spokesman for Adobe Systems, which makes the Acrobat software used to prepare the document, that entry indicated that Feaver created the original document that, with additions and editing, was posted on the Web. There is no way to know from the text how much he wrote.

Asked about who wrote the document, a White House official said Feaver had helped conceive and draft the plan, though the official said a larger role belonged to another NSC staff member, Meghan O'Sullivan, the deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, and her staff. Because the plan is meant as a statement of unified administration policy, the official would describe the individual roles only on condition of anonymity.

Former Creed lead singer Scott Stapp and members of the band 311 were involved in a fight on Thanksgiving in the lounge of a luxury hotel, according to hotel security staff and 311 members.
311 were in Baltimore for a weekend concert when several members ran into Stapp earlier that day, band drummer Chad Sexton told The Associated Press. Both Stapp and 311 have the same producer, and Sexton said there were no problems during the first meeting.

But Stapp later came into the Harbor Court Hotel bar while Sexton and bandmates SA Martinez and P-Nut were watching basketball on television. He stepped in front of the screen and said, "311, I am ready to fight," according to Sexton.

Sexton said the band tried to defuse the situation, and Stapp went to the bar to drink. Later, he made "inappropriate" comments to Martinez's wife, and was confrontational with Sexton.

So I'm saying goodbye to pals Jeanine and Heather. They have a few friends over to their place and are already stoned and drunk, seemingly ready for bed quite soon. I hear mumbling in the other room of some kids leaving soon because they have to go see Scott Stapp. My pop culture radar is not currently on, so I'm missing the reference. Instead, I think they're just talking about a friend who's driving in from out of town. But they're quite adamant about seeing Scott. "I'm fucking walking to Denny's to see Scott if I have to, I don't care if no one else goes!" one kid says.

So I'm curious and ask one of the guys what's going on. He tells me the background story: Apparently, one of their friends met Scott Stapp (who, because I find no problem with conflation, will for the rest of the story be referred to as "Creed") at an airport bar and the girl pretended to be interested. At the end of their conversation, he asked for her number and because she was going to Amsterdam, she gave Creed her friend's number instead. The girl then calls her friend and warns her that Creed might be calling her sometime in the future for a hook-up.

Which he does. Friday night. He flew into Orlando and gave the girl a call. The girl, thrilled at the prospect of making Creed look like an idiot, plays along. "You should drive up to Gainesville tonight to see me!" she says. Creed, because his star has fallen quite a bit recently (if you hadn't noticed) eagerly accepts the offer to drive 2 hours to get some pussy. I guess the groupies aren't lining up outside the airport like they used to.

I heard through the grapevine that night that Creed had actually kicked Scott Stapp out of their band. I don't know if this is true or not as no one on the Internet has any stories about it. But I googled him recently and found out that his solo career isn't taking off nearly like he expected, despite being the first released single off the Passion of the Christ Songs CD-- songs inspired by the movie. Mel Gibson hand picked him for a special screening, and he wrote a song after he was so personally affected by the movie. Douche.

Anyway, so the guy who was so spiritually affected by The Passion of the Christ is now hightailing it to Gainesville to tag a piece of ass he met in an airport bar. And he's having his ghettotastic hootchie skanky Jersey girl sleaze of a sister drive him. Yes, Creed is making his sister drive him to the Gainesville Denny's for a booty call.