al Qaeda Video: Humiliate Bush

Hope these guys don't come to my town.  In the meantime, Libi, one of the top al Qaeda commanders has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be "humiliated," without endorsing any party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to a video posted on the Internet.

The remarks were the first comments from a leading al Qaeda figure referring, albeit indirectly, to the U.S. elections. Muslim clerics often end sermons by calling on God to guide and support Muslims and help defeat their enemies.

"O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him," Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet.

Bin Laden made little mention of Bush's Democratic challenger John Kerry, telling Americans: "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe."

In 2004 al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden issued his first video in more than a year just days before the elections to deride President Bush and warn of possible new September 11-style attacks.

Oldest Hebrew Text Ever, Found

Hey this won't be coming to your town anytime soon, unless your town is Jerusalem. On Thursday, Archaeologists in Israel reported that they had unearthed the oldest Hebrew text ever found. The text was found while excavating a fortress city overlooking a valley where the Bible says David slew Goliath.

The dig's uncovering of the past near the ancient battlefield in the Valley of Elah, now home to wineries and a satellite station, could have implications for the emotional debate over the future of Jerusalem, some 20 km (12 miles) away.

Archaeologists from the Hebrew University said they found five lines of text written in black ink on a shard of pottery dug up at a five-acre (two-hectare) site called Elah Fortress, or Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Experts have not yet been able to decipher the text fully, but carbon dating of artifacts found at the site indicates the Hebrew inscription was written about 3,000 years ago, predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by 1,000 years, the archaeologists said.

Several words, including "judge," "slave" and "king," could be identified and the experts said they hoped the text would shed light on how alphabetic scripts developed.

Modern-day Israel often cites a biblical connection through David to Jerusalem in supporting its claim, which has not won recognition internationally, to all of the city as its "eternal and indivisible capital."

Palestinians, saying biblical claims have been superseded by the long-standing Arab population in Jerusalem, want the eastern part of the city, captured by Israel in a 1967 war, to be the capital of the state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"The chronology and geography of Khirbet Qeiyafa create a unique meeting point between the mythology, history, historiography and archaeology of King David," said Yosef Garfinkel, the lead archaeologist at the fortress site.

In a finding that could have symbolic value for Israel, the archaeologists said other items discovered at the fortress dig indicated there was most likely a strong king and central government in Jerusalem during the period scholars believe that David ruled the holy city and ancient Israel.

McCain Not Gonna Make It

Here's something that is not coming to your town soon, The Maverick.  He's losing so now he throws Palin under the bus.  He's looking for a scapegoat, for someone to blame when  McCain loses on Tuesday.  Her name is Sarah,  Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a McCain "adviser" told Dana Bash of CNN: "She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone."  Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?   Also, a "top McCain adviser" told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is "a whack job." Maybe she is. But who chose to put this "whack job" on the ticket? Wasn't it John McCain? And wasn't it his first presidential-level decision?

And if you are a 72-year-old presidential candidate, wouldn't you expect that your running mate's fitness for high office would come under a little extra scrutiny? And, therefore, wouldn't you make your selection with care? (To say nothing about caring about the future of the nation?) McCain didn't seem to care that much. McCain admitted recently on national TV that he "didn't know her well at all" before he chose Palin.

But why not? Why didn't he get to know her better before he made his choice? It's not like he was rushed. McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination in early March. He didn't announce his choice for a running mate until late August.

Wasn't that enough time for McCain to get to know Palin? Wasn't that enough time for his crackerjack "vetters" to investigate Palin's strengths and weaknesses, check through records and published accounts, talk to a few people, and learn that she was not only a diva but a whack job diva? But McCain picked her anyway. He wanted to close the "enthusiasm gap" between himself and Barack Obama. He wanted to inject a little adrenaline into the Republican National Convention. He wanted to goose up the Republican base. And so he chose Palin. Is she really a diva and a whack job? Could be. There are quite a few in politics. (And a few in journalism, too, though in journalism they are called "columnists.") As proof that she is, McCain aides now say Palin is "going rogue" and straying from their script. Wow. What a condemnation. McCain sticks to the script. How well is he doing?

In truth, Palin's real problem is not her personality or whether she takes orders well. Her real problem is that neither she nor McCain can make a credible case that Palin is ready to assume the presidency should she need to.  And that undercuts McCain's entire campaign.

This was the deal McCain made with the devil. In exchange for energizing his base by picking Palin, he surrendered his chief selling point: that he was better prepared to run the nation in time of crisis, whether it be economic, an attack by terrorists or, as he has been talking about in recent days, fending off a nuclear war. "The next president won't have time to get used to the office," McCain told a crowd in Miami on Wednesday. "I've been tested, my friends, I've been tested."  

Never has a man been tested so many times - unless you're Lance Armstrong, my friends!

'Angels and Demons' on the Silver Screen

Here it comes again, Dan Brown's words are coming to life on the big screen in the movie adaptation of his best-selling novel "Angels and Demons." As with "The Da Vinci Code," Ron Howard is directing "Angels and Demons" and Tom Hanks stars as Harvard religious expert Robert Langdon

Though the movie will not be released until May 2009, a trailer can be viewed at AngelsandDemons.com a little later today.

The suspense thriller follows Langdon on a globetrotting, secret door-finding adventure during which he meets a beautiful Italian scientist who joins in a hunt for truth. At the center of the action is a mysterious, ancient group called the Illuminati and its most-despised enemy: the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has been a recurring element in Brown's work and the source of much offscreen controversy.

In June, the church banned producers from filming key scenes in any church in Rome on the grounds that the book is "an offense against God," a Catholic Church spokesman said.
The slight was not directed at the script or the film's producers, Rome Diocese spokesman Monsignor Marco Fibbi said at the time, but rather at the book's author.

"Normally, we read the script, but this time it was not necessary," Fibbi told the Ansa Italian News Agency. "The name Dan Brown is enough."

Members of the Catholic Church denounced "The Da Vinci Code" as a novel when it came out in 2004, and its film version in 2006.

A subplot of the book included a theory in which Jesus married Mary Magdalene and fathered their children -- an idea Fibbi said was "morally offensive" and "harmful to religious feeling."
Howard pushed onward for "Angels and Demons," however, by filming scenes in substitute locations and on Hollywood sets.