Well, maybe he wasn't QUITE as cool as Roy Orbison, but he had something of that same vibe, and I liked a bunch of his songs when I was a kid, and when a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame checks out, it deserves at least a little diary at dKos.  RIP Gene Pitney, who was found dead on his hotel room bed, age 65, while touring in Cardiff, Wales.  

Of course, George W. Bush is also a drunk and a druggie, but most of y'all seem prepared to accept what HE says about 9-11:  that nineteen mostly 20-something Arab guys with boxcutters hijacked four passenger jetliners, and flew three of them into landmark buildings.  Heh.  No "conspiracy theory" there, right?

Anyway, without further ado I am onna flip reproducing a statement made at a press conference in Alexandria, VA on 3/13/2006 by George Nelson, Colonel, U.S. Air Force (retired).

So far as I'm aware Col. Nelson is neither a drunk, nor a drug addict.

Now, ye scoffers, it seems that even FOX is taking up the tinfoil.  More onna flip.

I have always wanted the Jews to be OK.  Safe, protected, unharmed.

But as the Israel-Arab conflict wears on and on, I have become progressively more disillusioned about Zionism.  The underlying philosophy of the thing seems offensive.  Consider the quotes below.

As a proud wearer of the tinfoil hat, I frequent web sites that most Kossacks wouldn't be caught dead on.  However, with the exception of a number of mostly Republican politicians, I firmly believe that the fact that a man/woman may not be fully reliable is not proof that they are always wrong.

I am a nonfundamentalist Christian of ecumenical bent.  My friends, my social circle throughout my life has been pretty mixed.  Mostly white, yes, but heavily Jewish (as perhaps 40% of my schoolmates were Jews) and Italian.  I'm a half-southern white boy.  My wife's a bad-tempered Italian girl.  (Well, the phrase is mildly redundant).  One of my kid's Vietnamese.

I was not quite thirteen when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C.

It was a hot day where my family lived, in New Jersey, and the summer was winding down.  This moment preceded the assassination of John F. Kennedy by less than three months.  My childhood, such as it was (my mother suffered from muscular dystrophy, so it wasn't exactly normal) was nearing its end.

Well, some weeks back I drew some hot, hot flames for a diary arguing that, given a 50% divorce rate and what happens to fathers and children in the no-fault divorce, maybe U.S. women are, statistically speaking, a lousy bet as wives.

Half-seriously, I suggested that American men consider marrying foreign women instead.  

The other day, I read a reference to a remark attributed to Germaine Greer that I found somewhat disheartening.  So, being a glutton for punishment, I'm again going to disagree with a feminist.  Yow!  Where's my asbestos overcoat at?

Nothing but persistent, in response to the recent calumnies, I again posted a diary.  Following a brief, snarky preface, I presented, otherwise without comment, some eminent persons' defenses of state sovereignty, generally, and the right of secession, specifically.

More below.  

Well, it's time a son of the South weighed in on the anniversary of Lee's surrender.

Let's hang some of those Southern rascals with their own words, OK?

Why might that be?

More below.

I have always favored stem cell rsearch, although to be honest when it's discussed in detail, I feel somewhat queasy about it, a funny feeling in my feet that makes me want to think about something else.

More below.

The report, attributed to "Islam Memo," states that more than 65 military jets left Basra airbase, and 40 American ships left the port of Basra, carrying American troops to Kuwait.  The sudden departure is said to have been confirmed by Mr. Kamal Albasry, "an administrator in charge of Um Al-Qasr port."

According to the report, eyewitnesses said the departing troops were evidently overjoyed, and that Iraqi children threw stones at them.  (More)

Having had the opportunity to read the judge's entire decision this morning, however, several things stood out that I wanted to comment on.

My first, and broadest comment is that from my point of view -- I am a New York lawyer, with nineteen years' experience -- Justice Ling-Cohan's opinion is wonderfully well-reasoned, and seems to this country lawyer to be very strong on the law, and is anything but a merely moral argument.  The judge may have gone out on a limb, but she is sitting on what looks to me like a very sound one.

More beneath the fold.

As you probably know, since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, the number of crimes that are punishable by death at the federal level has mushroomed.

I am opposed to the death penalty, perhaps more as a practical matter than as a moral question per se.  I respect the argument that certain crimes are so heinous that, arguably, no other punishment is adequate.  More below the staple.