sorta :-). My title is a come-on. He's probably not been on the site, but googling on related, I across a couple of interesting blasts from the past:

from 1999:

He actually got the jump on George Dubya last summer, when he proposed a “New Partnership” between church and state. While addressing a crowd in Atlanta at a Salvation Army drug rehab center, Gore paid lip service to the establishment clause, but reminded his audience that “freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion...”

Fast forward to Sunday, December 5 when Gore appeared on the CBS program 60-Minutes, for a segment with Leslie Stahl. In a discussion of religious beliefs, Gore admitted to being a born again Christian, adding:

"I am. It -- it -- it’s something lampooned, you know. And I think the --what I call the anti-religious view -- it sometimes tends to be arrogant and to the intimidating side of -- of making people who do believe in God feel kind of like they’re, you know..."

Stahl eagerly provides the ending for this: put down. Mr. Gore goes on to assure the viewers this “born again” philosophy is the “core of my life. It is -- it’s the foundation of my other beliefs, my political philosophy."

from 2004:

And yet the Bush ideology is tinged with religious belief, I said. Not everything comes with a price tag attached.

Gore’s mouth tightened. A Southern Baptist, he, too, had declared himself born again, but he clearly had disdain for Bush’s public kind of faith. “It’s a particular kind of religiosity,” he said. “It’s the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. They all have certain features in common. In a world of disconcerting change, when large and complex forces threaten familiar and comfortable guideposts, the natural impulse is to grab hold of the tree trunk that seems to have the deepest roots and hold on for dear life and never question the possibility that it’s not going to be the source of your salvation. And the deepest roots are in philosophical and religious traditions that go way back. You don’t hear very much from them about the Sermon on the Mount, you don’t hear very much about the teachings of Jesus on giving to the poor, or the beatitudes. It’s the vengeance, the brimstone.”

Is sexual inequality dividing the world into nice nations and bruisers?

May 19, 2006 Los Angeles Times. Excerpt:

In 1998, Francis Fukuyama published a short article in Foreign Affairs called "Women and the Evolution of World Politics." He began with a gruesome tale of violence among male zoo chimpanzees ("toes and testicles littering the floor of the cage") and moved briskly into a sociobiological account of human conflict (men are naturally aggressive; women are nicer).

In prosperous Western democracies, Fukuyama went on, we can expect women to move into increasingly powerful political positions, bringing less aggressive conflict-resolution techniques with them. But in poorer, undemocratic states, aggressive males will continue to hog the power. This, Fukuyama speculated....Fukuyama's crude generalizations about gender and aggression earned him a drubbing from the scholarly community. But he was right to worry about a future in which the globe is divided not merely by wealth but by the demographics of gender equality.

Consider two divergent global trends....

excerpt from White House press conference on Iraq, May 25:

Q Mr. President, you spoke about missteps and mistakes in Iraq. Could I ask both of you which missteps and mistakes of your own you most regret?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Sounds like kind of a familiar refrain here -- saying "bring it on," kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner -- you know, "wanted dead or alive," that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted, and so I learned from that. And I think the biggest mistake that's happened so far, at least from our country's involvement in Iraq is Abu Ghraib. We've been paying for that for a long period of time. And it's -- unlike Iraq, however, under Saddam, the people who committed those acts were brought to justice. They've been given a fair trial and tried and convicted.

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: I think inevitably some of the things that we thought were going to be the biggest challenge proved not to be, and some of the things we didn't expect to be challenges at all proved to be immense. I think that probably in retrospect -- though at the time it was very difficult to argue this -- we could have done the de-Baathification in a more differentiated way than we did.

I think that the most difficult thing, however, has been the determination of people to move against the democratic process in Iraq in a way that I think -- as I was saying a moment or two ago -- indicates our opponents' very clear view from a very early stage that they have to stop the democratic process working. And I think it's easy to go back over mistakes that we may have made, but the biggest reason why Iraq has been difficult is the determination of our opponents to defeat us. And I don't think we should be surprised at that.

Maybe in retrospect, when we look back, it should have been very obvious to us, and is obvious still in Afghanistan that for them, it is very clear. You know, they can't afford to have these countries turned round, and I think that probably, there was a whole series of things in Iraq that were bound to come out once you got al Qaeda and other groups operating in there to cause maximum destruction and damage. And therefore, I'm afraid in the end, we're always going to have to be prepared for the fall of Saddam not to be the rise of democratic Iraq, that it was going to be a more difficult process.

I believe video is available on the site if anyone wishes to see the tone of the delivery, though I haven't checked how comprehensive the options are. (I myself saw a clip on television and then went in search of the transcript.)

F.B.I. Raid Divides G.O.P. Lawmakers and White House/

By CARL HULSE, May 24 New York Times

beginning excerpts:

After years of quietly acceding to the Bush administration's assertions of executive power, the Republican-led Congress hit a limit this weekend.

Resentment boiled among senior Republicans for a second day on Tuesday after a team of warrant-bearing agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation turned up at a closed House office building on Saturday evening, demanded entry to the office of a lawmaker and spent the night going through his files.

The episode prompted cries of constitutional foul from Republicans — even though the lawmaker in question, Representative William J. Jefferson of Louisiana, is a Democrat whose involvement in a bribery case has made him an obvious partisan political target....

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House majority leader, predicted that the separation-of-powers conflict would go to the Supreme Court. "I have to believe at the end of the day it is going to end up across the street," Mr. Boehner told reporters gathered in his conference room, which looks out on the Capitol plaza and the court building.

A court challenge would place all three branches of government in the fray over whether the obscure "speech and debate" clause of the Constitution, which offers some legal immunity for lawmakers in the conduct of their official duties, could be interpreted to prohibit a search by the executive branch on Congressional property....

KING: Jim Carville, are you happy about things?

CARVILLE: You know, I guess to the extent that I'm happy that the president is not doing well.

I look at fund-raising today. The RNC has a 4-1 advantage over the DNC. I know that these Republicans are going to savage these candidates out here. They're going to have them, you know, say they got illegitimate children, that they cheated on this, and God knows whatnot.

And if Democrats get lulled into thinking -- and Ken Mehlman said in the paper today, is, we're going to go after the Democrats. We can -- they're not going to run on a record or anything.

And I think that there's way, way too much Democratic optimism. And I have been urging people. And I think the good news is, people like Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer understand this. Our committees are raising money hand over foot.

We have got to prepare people, embrace people for the onslaught that's coming. We know what's coming. And I don't think this is a time for Democrats to be overly optimistic. You're right. These Republicans are not going to run on national anything. They're not going to run on any record.

They're going right after these people with a meat cleaver. And I'm -- I'm worried, to tell you the truth.

from

CNN LARRY KING LIVE

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

on 2008

KING: McCain a lock?

CARVILLE: No. Nobody's a lock. And I think Senator Clinton, who I happen to know pretty well, she doesn't think that she's a lock. There are going to be a lot of Democrats running for this. I wouldn't be surprised if you have six or seven top-tier candidates...

L. KING: ... Gore too?

CARVILLE: Very well could. I have a theory, but it's a theory like evolution's a theory, OK? It's been proven a thousand times. Anybody that has ever run for president or vice president wants to run again. He may be. But -- I won't get into that. He wants to run for president.

L. KING: He does?

CARVILLE: It's like - running for president is like having sex. You don't do it once and say, "Well, I've already done that, I'll move on to something else."

And so there's going to be a lot of Democrats and a lot of Republicans that are going to get that -- who have run before are going to get out there. A lot of Democrats -- a lot of Democrats are saying, "You know, I should have gone in '04, and I'm not going to sit this out."

I think Senator Clinton -- and I think she'll win because I think the world of her. I think she's very smart, very tough and I think she understands that. And I know for a fact she doesn't look at these polls and say I'm the front-runner. I don't think she's going to run a classic front-runner campaign.

But it's going to be tough. Governor Warner, Russ Feingold's going to be a big factor in this. Senator Biden may run. Senator Dodd may run.

ROBERTS: Edwards is out there.

CARVILE: Edwards is out there. Senator Bayh's raising money hand over foot.

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: I'm getting the thing if I don't mention someone I'll get 100 calls. But they're going to be out there.

ROBERTS: At the last Republican convention I talked with Zell Miller and he said there's no Democrat out there who I could vote for because there's no Democrat out there that shares my conservative values. I said, "Well, what Democrat could you vote for president?" He said Evan Bayh.

CARVILLE: He's endorsed Ralph Reed, so there's not many Ralph Reed Democrats out there.

ROBERTS: But he did tell me though, he said Evan Bayh is a Democrat he could vote for. But he represents a certain point of view.

CARVILLE: You know what, the Democrats probably are going to pick up two congressional seats in Indiana. Evan Bayh is a hardworking guy. He's raised $10 million, $11 million and he's a very serious man.

L. KING: Why are you smiling, Jim?

CARVILLE: I was listening to what Wolf said. Look, Frist is not going to be the Republican nominee. They're not going to nominate someone who's in charge of the Senate given the ratings that the Senate and everything that's happened and - I just think --

on 2006 again:

L. KING: Let's squeeze in a call.

Ormond Beach, Florida, hello.

CALLER: Hello. This is for James Carville. Karl Rove is a brilliant strategist. He once said to his political opponents, when you think you have us figured out, we change direction. In this election year, the Republican Congress seemed to be playing good cops to the president's bad cop policies. Could this be a clever plan orchestrated by Karl Rove to keep Republicans in power?

CARVILLE: It could be, but I doubt it. I don't think that this was to set up this kind of immigration debate, where the president would have a kind of different position, my sense is it was forced on him. But you make a very good point. He is a very smart guy. I point out again as to Republicans at the committee, at the RNC and the DNC, have a four to one cash advantage.

A lot of these districts are in suburban Philadelphia and New Hampshire and the Boston media market and are going to be quite extensive. And I caution Democrats against over optimism. They're going to have to raise a lot more money. There is a lot of things that can happen.

And Karl Rove -- and they're going to savage these candidates. We have to be ready for it. Thank God we've got people like Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer in our own Senate and House committee.

Palestinian PM vows to avoid civil war

Daily Times (of Pakistan), March 24

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya on Tuesday urged rival forces from his Hamas militant group and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement to show restraint and vowed there would be no civil war. Clashes have intensified between Hamas and Fatah since the Islamist-led government deployed a new, 3,000-member paramilitary unit last week. A cabinet spokesman said the government would not disband the force despite demands from Abbas to do so.....Fatah leaders said tensions would continue as long as the Hamas-led force remained on the streets in defiance of Abbas....

More within this piece:

Israel Says It Arrested a Hamas Militant

JERUSALEM, May 23

The Israeli military today arrested a Palestinian described as the top commander of Hamas's military wing in the West Bank and said he ...

Interesting related

China says Hamas visit should not harm Israel ties

US hawks 'hinder moves' on Iran nuclear incentives

Published: May 24 2006 03:00

The following article from the above link is posted under fair use rules in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, for my own educational and research purposes.

Opposition by US "hawks" led by Dick Cheney, the vice-president, is complicating efforts by the main European powers to put together a package of incentives aimed at persuading Iran to suspend its nuclear fuel cycle programme, according to diplomats and analysts in Washington.

London is today hosting political directors of the EU3 of France, Germany and the UK, together with China, Russia and the US to look at the twin tools of incentives and sanctions.

Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, was said by one diplomat to have "gone out on a limb" in an attempt to back the EU3's package of incentives but was facing resistance from Mr Cheney who is playing a more visible role in US foreign policy. Another diplomat said US internal divisions were holding up an agreement with the Europeans. The political directors held a preliminary meeting in London yesterday.

Some European diplomats believe that Washington will back the package - which includes guarantees for the construction of light water reactors in Iran, promises of nuclear fuel and a new regional security forum - if Moscow endorsed a tough chapter seven United Nations Security Council resolution that would require Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.

"The idea is that something moves if everything moves," said one EU diplomat. "The positive elements of the package have to move at the same time as Security Council action."

US officials would not comment on Washington's internal debate. Ms Rice has denied reports that the EU3 asked the US to provide security guarantees to Iran. Accusing Iran of being the "central banker of terrorism", she made clear that such assurances were "not on the table".

The current version of the package steers clear of formal security guarantees. It would, however, set up a new "regional security mechanism", including Iran and other Gulf countries, to reassure the Iranian government that its neighbours did not seek its overthrow.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, has already rejected the EU's advances, even before an offer has been made.

Diplomats are doubtful Iran will accept a deal that does not allow it to continue at least small-scale uranium enrichment. The US and EU3 have ruled that out. But the package envisages participating governments providing guarantees for an international consortium of companies to build light water reactors in Iran.

Mr Cheney is said to oppose the notion of "rewarding bad behaviour" following Iran's alleged breaches of its nuclear safeguards commitments. The "hawks" - who include John Bolton, the US envoy to the UN, and Bob Joseph, a senior arms control official - fear a repeat of a similar agreement reached with North Korea in 1994 which did not stop the communist regime from pursuing a secret weapons programme.

Ministers are still bruised from angry exchanges between Ms Rice and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov two weeks ago.

VIEW: Sexy culture —Arne Jernelöv

Daily Times (of Pakistan), May 24, 2006

What makes the poet, the painter, and the singer attractive is uselessness combined with the difficulty of their activity. The harder and more futile the activity, the better and more sexually attractive is the performer. Naturally, self-awareness of this underlying wish to be sexually attractive is not required. The mechanism works all the same. Why is there culture? What motivates people to write poems, paint, or sing?....

Check out the author bio: "Jernelöv is professor of environmental biochemistry and former director of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, and a UN expert on environmental catastrophes." :-)

that many leftist fundamentalist atheists seem so ascared of:

Just before midnight, the calls start coming in to the church on Allen Street in Chinatown. They come from Chinese restaurant workers across the United States. Chen Yingjie, 25, is one of those on the other end, dialing the Manhattan church, the Church of Grace to Fujianese, on a recent night from his room above the China Garden in Dowagiac, Mich., a town of 6,000. "Every time I call in, I know that the Lord is alive and that there are brothers and sisters by my side," Mr. Chen said. "I don't feel as empty."....

The Bible study is the brainchild of the Pastor Paul Chen, a minister at Church of Grace, and himself an emigrant from the Fuzhou region, which has become China's leading source of illegal immigrants smuggled into the United States. Three years ago, he said, he had been praying about how to tend to the thousands of Fujianese working in Chinese restaurants across the country....

in full at

"Immigrants Hear God's Word, in Chinese, via Conference Call" By MICHAEL LUO