The list of celebrities who know that impoliteness can do wonders for a profile is long. Simon Cowell of the television programme American Idol gets it with his eye-rolling meanness to contestants.

So do the country's radio shock-jocks. Don Imus uttered one racial slur too many last month and got fired. So it was open season on him for a while. But plenty more like him are still practising their brand of bigotry - no minority is spared - and the listeners are still tuning in.

Then there is the frequently funny but just as often obnoxious Rosie O'Donnell, the comedian who recently announced her departure from The View, a popular morning television discussion show.

At least she sometimes targets herself. After singer Sheryl Crow proposed that we ration ourselves to one square of toilet paper each, Rosie, who is not a lithe person, was to the point: "Have you seen my ass?"   more »

Our political leaders today fuel the fires of violence and hatred. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that there is s direct correlation between the “politics of fear” as practiced by the Bush Administration and the upsurge in the numbers of hate groups as well as violence against immigrants and others perceived as “different.”

According to George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley University cognitive scientist and author of "Moral Politics" the anxiety-provoking anti-terrorism actions and messages of the Bush administration fall into the category of the “strict father” mode of communication.

This is the same mode of communication used by all dictators throughout history, be they ruthless or, seemingly – as in Bush’s case – benevolent.

Reagan employed much of the same tactics – on a lesser scale – he might well have been referred to as a “strict grandfather,” his administration also saw an up tick in violence, much of it directed at the gay community.   more »

An angry and bitter Paul Wolfowitz

poured abuse and threatened retaliations

on senior World Bank staff if his orders

for pay rises and promotions

for his partner were revealed:

"If they fuck me or Shaha,

I have enough on them to fuck them too"

   more »

Keywords: bank, world, wolfowitz, neocon

The capture of Americans - like the hostages in Lebanon in the Eighties or in the Tehran embassy in 1979 - has traditionally had a greater impact on the US public than the death of soldiers.

It is the nightmare of American commanders, going all the way to the Commander-in-Chief, President Bush, for US servicemen to be in enemy hands. The loss of these three prisoners could prove to be even more significant this time, as the public is already firmly against the war.

A drawn-out hostage crisis, that ends in tragedy, could be the final blow to President's Bush's faltering support amongst Republicans.

For the soldiers searching for the three men, the US faces the additional danger of losing even more because of booby traps and roadside bombs.   more »

Weekend bloodshed in Karachi, nationwide political turmoil, and border clashes between Pakistani and Afghan troops have heightened the sense that a potentially unstoppable, many-fronted crisis is about to engulf Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf.

After almost eight years of smartly pressed, barely legitimate uniformed rule from his colonial era residence in Rawalpindi, Gen Musharraf is fast shedding friends at home and abroad.

This is not wholly surprising. In Pakistan, it is often said, military strongmen rarely depart the scene happily or even alive.

"The battle lines are now drawn. There is Musharraf and the ruling political party and the MQM (the Karachi-based Mohajir movement) on one side and the rest of Pakistan on the other," said Najam Sethi, editor of the Daily Times. "He is facing the worst period of his rule."   more »