Six years ago he was not merely an A-list movie star with a penchant for drinking and boorish behavior but also a powerful and canonized figure in the political and cultural pantheon of American conservatism. That he has reached rock bottom tells us nothing new about Gibson. He was the same talented, nasty, bigoted blowhard then that he is today. But his fall says a lot about the changes in our country over the past six years. We shouldn't take those changes for granted. We should take stock -- and celebrate. They are good news.

NYT

Course I hate the Burka, but this dude knows about the Burka and how the Burka came about.  First of all, the Qur'an says nothing about women covering their heads.  We are only supposed to be covering our bosom, but factions of Islam have increased what women must cover to head scarves.  And the fully veiled from head to toe women?  When women of wealthy families went "out" they would sometimes be robbed or kidnapped for ransom so the veiling began as a way to not let anyone know what jewelry you could be wearing or who you were and how wealthy your family was.  Then, because the wealthy were doing it it became a status symbol.  Then it eventually evolved into a form of repression as factions of Islam became more extreme.

In teaching all these facts about actual Islam verses what it has evolved into in different areas and branches though, a soldier in one of his classes has made a formal accusation of proselytizing to the Inspector General.  Everyone in my husband's schooling section quite literally invites the investigation too.  Through such things the truth verses bigotry comes out.  And there is no way the military is going to cut back on cultural awareness classes about the Muslim world.

Conservatives often pride themselves on their hard-headed approach to public-policy -- in contradistinction to liberals, who generally are typecast as fuzzy-headed utopians. Yet when it comes to climate change, many conservatives I know will assign credibility to any stray piece of junk science that lands in their inbox ... so long as it happens to support their own desired conclusion. (One conservative columnist I know formed her skeptical views on global warming based on testimonials she heard from novelist Michael Crichton.) The result is farcical: Impressionable conservatives who lack the numeracy skills to perform long division or balance their checkbooks feel entitled to spew elaborate proofs purporting to demonstrate how global warming is in fact caused by sunspots or flatulent farm animals. Or they will go on at great length about how "climategate" has exposed the whole global-warming phenomenon as a charade -- despite the fact that a subsequent investigation exculpated research investigators from the charge that they had suppressed temperature data. (In fact, "climategate" was overhyped from the beginning, since the scientific community always had other historical temperature data sets at its disposal -- that maintained by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, most notably -- entirely independent of the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, where the controversy emerged.)

After a six-week wait, unemployment benefits are expected to be retroactively reinstated next week for more than 2.5 million Americans who have been out of work for at least six months.

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday afternoon on a stand-alone $34 billion bill that will provide those extended benefits of up to 99 weeks through November. ....

Funding for the benefits was cut off June 2 when Senate Republicans launched a successful filibuster, arguing that not paying for the bill would add to the growing debt.

Democrats will get the vote they need -- the bill has been short the 60th vote since the death of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) -- when Carte Goodwin is sworn in Tuesday as Byrd's interim replacement.

After it came to light last week that films and videotapes made by the artist Larry Rivers included footage of his two daughters naked, New York University informed his foundation that it did not want those materials included as part of the archive it was purchasing, said John Beckman, a spokesman for N.Y.U.....

....Mr. Rivers filmed his daughters at six-month intervals, beginning when each was about 11, from 1976 to 1981, for a series that he titled "Growing." He filmed them either naked or topless and made comments and asked questions about their changing bodies, particularly their breasts. Ms. Tamburlini has said that she felt very uncomfortable about being filmed and that it contributed to her becoming anorexic as a teenager.

Mel Gibson has sold his New York home at a cut price in an attempt to escape to Australia, according to reports.....

...The troubled star, who is facing domestic abuse allegations from his ex-girlfriend, knocked £10 million off the £26 million asking price, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday.

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

SNIP

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation's other findings include:

• Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

• An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 11/2 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

• In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

Long story short, one of my roomies hosted a shindig Saturday night while I was out...Sunday afternoon I discover I got ripped off for a couple hundo.  Confront my roomie, all his guests were known to him & I but one...and asking around this crackhead p.o.s. has a rep for ripping people off.   Found out where he lives, paid him a visit last night...money went up his arm or in his gut by then, took every ounce of self-control I had not to pound the mofo...cool head & non-violence prevails barely.  I did smash his junkie abode up pretty good...enough street justice for me.

My problem is the person to blame...my roomie.  He's been warned before about lettin' shady mofos into our house,  I love him to death, we've been friends forever, but repeated lapses in judgement and inconsideration have me thinking I can't share a home with him anymore.  It takes a lot to break this camel's back but I think I'm there...I'm not sure I can get over the inconsiderate stupidity...I'm really twisted guys.  Getting ripped off is no big deal, it's having to trust somebody with such poor judgement.  otoh I don't wanna be the bad guy, not a role I play very well...if I do kick him out I'll end up feeling guilty.  I know he feels terrible, but I also know in a month it'll be forgotten and back to the same old sh*t...that's just his m.o.

Whaddya guys think?  Throw 'em out or one more chance?  The rest of the house seems willing to go along with whatever I decide...they're not happy campers either.  

U.S.  and Western intelligence agencies assess that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is terminally ill, and the Obama administration is closely watching the expected transition of power in a nation that for decades has been an anchor of stability in the volatile Middle East and a key U.S.  ally.

A California man, whose mother said he was upset about Congress' "left-wing agenda," allegedly opened fire on police officers during a traffic stop in Oakland early Sunday morning.

The man, identified by local news reports as Byron Williams of Groveland, was allegedly pulled over for driving erratically by the California Highway Patrol. As the officers approached his truck, they saw several guns and ammunition, according to police, and they saw the suspect reach for a handgun.

Janice Williams said she kept the guns, which were locked in safe, because "eventually, I think we're going to be caught up in a revolution." She also told the Chronicle that she had warned Byron that "he didn't have to be on the front lines."

Valhalla Rising

Syria bans face veils at universities
Veiled women in Damascus, Syria (file image) Wearing the full veil has caused controversy in Europe and the Middle East

Female students wearing a full face veil will be barred from Syrian university campuses, the country's minister of higher education has said.