Oh and the big news: James Traficant's signature hair is actually a toupee. This is big enough that CNN is carrying the story: http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/08/01/traficant.hair.ap/index.html.

OK unrelated to kev's post: remember when everyone was talking about the "Jenin Massacre" a few weeks back? From day 1 it was suspected that the Palestinians (as they've done in the past) were ever-so-slightly exaggerating claims of what happened. The UN finally got out a report (to be released today) of what happened. The Palestinians' old claim: 500 were killed. The UN: less than 26 Palestinian civilians were killed (out of 52 total; most were of the group of 200 palestinian terrorists using the town as a base, according to the report). And 23 Israeli soldiers were killed as well. So how is it a massacre when just as many Israelis are killed (on purpose) as innocent Palestinians (accidentally)? There's a tendency to believe everything an underdog says; I think this kind of proved that one needs to take even the most belligerent claims of anyone with a grain of salt - an overestimate by more than 1,800% of the number of civilians killed could hardly have been a little mistake on the Palestinians' part. Plus, the UN (not generally known for support of Israel - they've officially voted to condemn Israel more than any other nation ever, including China, Iraq, or apartheid South Africa) criticized the Palestinian terrorists for using civilian centers as bases. It's unacceptable: if the terrorist organizations such as Hamas really believe their own modern rhetoric about fighting a war against Israel, then why don't they treat it like a war and leave their own civilians out of it? When they declare war on Israel but use their own people as human shields by basing military ops (even their military wing's director, as in last week's case) in populous areas, how come Israel gets the bad PR? (note: this rant is making no claims about Israeli-Palestinian human rights issues or anything; this is purely a military-terrorism related article. I personally thing Israel should pull out of the west bank as soon as it's viable from a security point of view and when there is a viable plan for the creation of an independent democratic Palestinian state). When they go in on foot, trying to minimize casualties, it's an "invasion" and a "human rights abuse," but when they stay in the air they get criticized even more... Not that i support civilians getting killed (hell, i don't even like it when animals die, much less human beings); but what's Israel supposed to do - sit on their hands and wait until terrorist leaders stop ordering and planning attacks of their own volition, paint bullseyes on their chests and walk into their local Israeli army outpost to give themselves up? Israel's already out of towns like Jericho because there's no terrorist base operating out of there... if the Palestinian people would simply refuse to be a human shield and force terrorist organizations to make bases outside of densely populated civilian areas, "occupation" would end that much faster, I think. Not to mention that Hamas is violating international humanitarian law by basing in towns, according to the UN report.

The problem I have with a Palestinian state right now: it would not want peace with Israel. The PA feels it's the right of the Palestinians to own all of Israel, including Jerusalem - they see all of Israel as an "occupied territory". In the PA's official report to the UN see attachment 1 to Kofi Annan's report), they repeatedly say how Israel "exists in the Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem, as an occupying Power." I think it's a wake-up-call to those who think peace is as easy as having two side-by-side Jewish and Palestinian states to think that the Palestinian state would see Jerusalem as Palestinian territory.

On the other hand, Israel has got to stop being so goddamned stubborn and screwing up their PR because they don't really care about what anyone else thinks. They didn't even cooperate with the UN fact finding mission... given that a lot of the report echoes the PA statement verbatim, it's pretty surprising it criticizes the Palestinians at all. One wonders how much better for Israel the report would be if the primary sources for the UN statement were not Palestinian. Stupid, stupid Israel.

The US has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any developed country (eg. double the rate in England). That rate has gone down over recent years; and I guarantee you it is not because American teenagers have stopped having sex, that's for sure :-).

Unfortunately, Kevin's suggestion to the right-wing involves compromise on an issue, and one that the right sees as a moral rather than practical issue. Their issue is not "how can we prevent disease and unwanted pregnancies most effectively given the modern climate" but rather "how can we spread around Jesus stuff?"

Although, on the other hand, how passing out bibles is promoting a message of monogamous abstinence is beyond me; in Genesis, Jacob's son Judah had sons; his first son died, and then when his first son's wife remarried Judah's second son, he died too. Judah (while still married to his wife, mind you) then hired his former daughter-in-law as a prostitute (she was in a disguise by the city gates so he didn't know it was her). He got her pregnant and eventually had to own up to the deed. And mind you, Judah was the forefather of King David (and, if you accept the claim of most Christian groups, the ancestor of Jesus as well). So how again do we learn abstinence from the Bible?

And Ryan, I think the best part of the article was that out of the tens of thousands of readers of the local paper (and that's in North Carolina, not exactly the most liberal of states), only 7 cancelled their subscriptions over it :-).