North Coast Cafe, South

Iraq Conflict Has Killed A Million Iraqis

A new survey conducted by Opinion Research Business, one of Britain's leading polling groups.  found that 20 percent of Iraqis  had had at least one death in their household as a result of the he conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Why We Fight? Please, Tell Me Again.

I must have missed something. Didn't Dubya tell us we were invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iran to bring them freedom and democracy ?

The New York Times today reports an Afghan court  sentenced a journalism student to death for blasphemy for distributing an article from the Internet that was considered an insult to the Prophet Muhammad.      

Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, 23,  is a student at the faculty of journalism in Mazar-i-Sharif and also works for a daily paper, Jahan-e-Naw, as a reporter.

He was accused of downloading a controversial article and adding some of his own paragraphs about the ignorance of the Prophet Muhammad on women’s rights.

The case follows two previous incidents of journalists being accused of blasphemy in Afghanistan since 2001 and the installation of the U.S.-backed Karzai government.

Ayatollah Huckabee

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god.

And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

This presidential campaign gets curiouser and curiouser.  Am I the only observer who worries about the direction of contemporary political discourse?  Huckabee proudly proposes to amend the U. S.
constitution to create a fundamentalist religious state. 

Time to cull the herd. Ding this dingbat back to Arkansas.

Let's Give a Hand for Wildlife

World  Wildlife Fund

A Heart-rending, tear jerking, feel good tale for the New Year

Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together compete in  marathons  when they're not in a triathlon — that daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming.

Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.

It’s a remarkable record of exertion — all the more so when you consider that Rick can't walk or talk.

Watch This:  Click here

For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines.

When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing.

When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike.

When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.

At Rick’s birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would be no hope for their child’s development.  More