Amnesty International reports that the Iraqi government is holding some 30,000 prisoners without charges or due process. In some instances the prisoners have been abused or even tortured. About 10,000 of these prisoners were recently handed over to the Iraqis when the US combat mission in Iraq supposedly ended.

"'Galileo Was Wrong' is an inaugural conference to discuss the 'detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe.' The geocentrists argue that 'Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the [Catholic] Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.'

And I thought, No, I'm not going to sit here passively and wait for it to happen. I wanted to go to "them," whoever "they" were, grab them by the neck, and get them before they could get us.

"On the contrary, I thought. We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic."

Scientist Shocked by Samples of "Dense" Sludge a Mile Below Surface, and as Far as 80 Miles from BP Well

Washington (CNN) - Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine plans to make what's being billed as a major announcement Wednesday about the future of the party, according to a Democratic source with knowledge of the speech.

The source tells CNN that Kaine will announce something that will excite Democrats across the country. Kaine's event comes as Democrats face the difficult task of holding onto their majorities in the House and Senate this November.

French Senate votes overwhelmingly to outlaw Islamic face veils in last step to make ban law

The French Senate has voted overwhelmingly for a bill banning the burqa-style Islamic veil everywhere from post offices to streets, in a final step toward a making it law.

The Senate voted 246 to 1 Tuesday in favor of the bill, which has already passed in the lower chamber, the National Assembly...

Kenza Drider, however, says she'll flirt with arrest to wear her veil as she pleases.

"It is a law that is unlawful," said Drider, a mother of four from Avignon, in southern France. "It is ... against individual liberty, freedom of religion, liberty of conscience, she said....

Raphael Liogier, a sociology professor who heads the Observatory of the Religious in Aix-en-Provence, says that Muslims in France are already targeted by hate-mongers and the ban on face-covering veils "will officialize Islamophobia."

"I will continue to live my life as I always have with my full veil," she told Associated Press Television News.

At FDL's the Seminal, Jim White reveals that CNN interviewed two former disillusioned followers of Terry Jones' German Church. I want to emphasize again, this was a GERMAN church:

it goes on...

BLACK: Jones' church, the Christian Community of Cologne, became the focus of their lives. Jones insisted on it, borrowing an infamous Nazi motto.

H. KOOP: And we worked the whole week, also Sunday and Saturday.

BLACK (on camera): For the church?

ELKA KOOP, FORMER JONES FOLLOWER: Yes.

H. KOOP: For the church, yes.

E. KOOP: Work made free.

BLACK: Is that what he said?

E. KOOP: Yes.

BLACK: Work makes you free?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

In German, of course, this translates into "Arbeit Macht Frei", if that sounds familiar to you, it should, you can see the phrase on the gates of Auschwitz.