The Road to Damascus

Syria – target of American sanctions, junior member of the "Axis of Evil," repressive dictatorship, and the best nation in the Middle East in which to live if you are a Christian.

Therefore an object of particular hatred not only to Osama bin Laden, but to the religious fanatics in Israel, and to those Bible Belters behind Bush for whom Orthodox Christians are even more loathsome idolators than those damned Catholics.

The Christians of the Middle East are marked for death -- by Islam, by Israel, by America.

Tigger in Trouble

Later, the girl learned that the costumed character had done the same thing to her mother with his left hand, the report says.

Thanks, Prime Minister Sharon

You put yourself in the shoes of an American military commander in Fallujah. He treats with the local clan leaders and Sunni clergy. He tries to get them on the side of the US. He faces hostility, but he is making some progress. And then Ariel Sharon sends US-made helicopter gunships to Gaza and has them fire missiles at people coming out of a mosque, killing 8 and wounding 24. One of the dead is a half-blind paraplegic Islamist named Sheikh Yassin. He could have easily been arrested, and had been in the 1990s. But he was incinerated in a piece of state terror instead. And all of a sudden the people of Fallujah in Iraq are pointing their fingers at the American troops and saying, 'you did this. You gave Sharon the green light.' And all the commander's hard work in building bridges collapses over night. And four US security personnel are dead, and 5 US troops are dead, and the fighting flares up. Thanks, Prime Minister Sharon. Thank you very much. -- Juan Cole

"One day, all shoelaces will be tied this way."

"This tricky move requires each hand to use the two fingers inside its own loop to grab the loose end of the other hand's loop. Use the left thumb and forefinger to grab the loose right end, then the right thumb and middle finger can grab the loose left end."