He just can't seem to stop talking about it. Barely a week has gone by this year that President Bush has not brought up his advancing age at least once.

``How you doing, sir?'' a reporter asked Bush at a news conference. ``I'm doing all right, thank you,'' the president replied. ``A little jet-lagged, as I'm sure you can imagine. Nearly 60.''

In his State of the Union address, the president referred to his upcoming birthday as ``a personal crisis.'' It was a laugh line -- used to segue to a call for overhauling programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, soon strained by Bush's baby boomer generation.

In fact, Bush is nearly always cracking wise when the topic of his age comes up. The humor, however, contains unmistakably wistful notes, revealing a president who is least somewhat pensive about both aging and his relevance after he leaves the White House in 31 months.   more »

Like nearly everybody else around the world, Iraqis gathered over the weekend to watch the soccer World Cup.

Since many do not have electricity and cannot afford cable television, Iraqis assembled in cafes and public parks to watch the games on large screens.

Such crowded gatherings are prime targets for terrorists, especially late at the night.

The Sunnis of Iraq overwhelmingly support the French soccer team. They could not hide their pleasure when France defeated Brazil on Saturday.

The Shi'ites, who at first supported the Iranian team, are currently divided: some are for Germany, others for Italy.

But some insurgents weren't interested in the soccer.   more »

There can be no clearer example of the inherently racist nature of Western ‘civilisation’ than the events of the past week.

And if anyone doubt the power of language to shape our perception of events let them look no further than the alleged exemplar of ‘objective’ reporting, the BBC and its treatment of the genocidal policies of the state of Israel.

Elsewhere, other writers have highlighted the actual language used to reduce the actions of the Palestinians to those of some kind of sub-human not worthy of consideration.

No doubt there are some who feel so embarrassed by the latest actions of the Zionist state that they will protest, and sections of the ‘liberal’ media will bleat but do little else.

By next week, it will be last week's 'news'. What's the deaths of a few more non-people in the Western scheme of things?   more »

As I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. "Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human's upset.

In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, "Don't worry, they'll turn up."

But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.

Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don't turn around. I don't say a word. I'm using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.   more »

The brutalization of the American insurgents was justified by the British monarchy on the grounds that they “weren’t soldiers but ‘rebels’ and that defining them as prisoners of war amounted to de facto recognition of American independence.”

America's Declaration of Independence, a document that launched a revolution against colonialism and despotism, inspired peoples all over the world.

The creation of a new nation, founded on Enlightenment concepts of democracy, equality and the rule of law, foreshadowed the French Revolution thirteen years later and had international reverberations for generations thereafter.

The document signed in 1776 had a profoundly liberating character, proclaiming the right of the people—not only in America, but everywhere—to employ revolutionary means to dislodge governments that trampled on their “unalienable rights.”   more »

The occupation has been one vast extended crime against the Iraqi people, and most of it has occurred unnoticed by the American people and the media.

Americans, led to believe that their soldiers and Marines would be welcomed as liberators by the Iraqi people, have no idea what the occupation is really like from the perspective of Iraqis who endure it.

Although I am American, born and raised in New York City, I came closer to experiencing what it might feel like to be Iraqi than many of my colleagues.

I often say that the secret to my success in Iraq as a journalist is my melanin advantage. I inherited my Iranian father’s Middle Eastern features, which allowed me to go unnoticed in Iraq, blend into crowds, march in demonstrations, sit in mosques, walk through Falluja’s worst neighborhoods.

I also benefited from being able to speak Arabic—in particular its Iraqi dialect, which I hastily learned in Baghdad upon my arrival and continued to develop throughout my time in Iraq.

My skin color and language skills allowed me to relate to the American occupier in a different way, for he looked at me as if I were just another haji, the “gook” of the war in Iraq.   more »

4 JULY

Special Edition: Christ Cartoons - Jesus Freaks Foam at the Mouth

War Propaganda Aimed at 9-14 Year-Olds

American Psycho [Our Man in the White House]

Iraq: "Rape and Slay" Atrocity - Victim Was I5-Year-Old Girl

The Awful Irony: Jewish Fighters Used "Terrorist' Tactics Against the British in 1946

The Rabid Right's First Commandment: "Thou Shalt Not Question Our War"

Why I Hate: Liberals for War on Terror