And don’t listen to anybody else in any government office or news media who criticizes the president he is our God and Savoir!!!!

Many of us have come believe that, more often than not, this knee-jerk claim of secrecy has far more to do with maintaining power at all costs….

Hey, let me clue you in that we were attacked by Islamic terrorists in 2001, which demands special ways to defeat them and more need for government secrecy–except for when The NY Times is telling terrorists how we are tracking their financial transactions and such. As the cartoon says, The NY Times cares more about defeating Bush than millions of American lives. It’s a hard decision, but I’ll trust Bush on secrecy more than I do The NY Times on spilling the beans to our enemies.

In a moment of temporary insanity and while looking for amusement, I tuned into Air America today. It was one conspiracy theory after another, one attack against the U.S. after another, one demand to impeach the President after another. Celeste quit listening to that garbage.

If you see an old truck with a broken tail-light which has rakes and lawnmowers in the bed, guess what they are doing in Beverly Hills or the Westside.

See Huffington Post for video clip of Rep. Sen. Nagle talking (on Friday night’s Bill Maher show) about how disgracefully Bush is trying to spin the Iraq war. — Nagle isn’t running for re-election so can come clean about how he really feels.

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I’m sure Woody is a big fan of Bill Maher and doesn’t miss a single episode. So I provide this link for those who don’t watch the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCZmAa3KZWs

The other Maher (Arar) case sounds disgraceful: I think there are unfortunately good reasons for racial profiling in some cases, because it’s stupid to make babies and old ladies undergo the same level of search at airports as young men from (or born to parents from) Middle Eastern countries. As we’ve seen last week in Germany, recently in England and Spain, and over and over, the most seemingly “assimiliated” Muslims, or Christian converts to Islam, can be closeted anti-Western fundamentalists. (Far more dangerous than the Christian fundamentalists Chemerowsky is so hysterical about.)

However, and this is a big “however”: simply questioning someone more carefully should be an opportunity to ferret out the true threats, and it is sheer incompetence of the highest order to go so far as to deport someone when there is no basis for this.

Anyone who’s been to Israel knows the way security screens you on departure, asking nosy questions about who you’ve seen or are seeing everywhere on your itinerary, including stopovers in Europe. I used to think this was irrelevant and “we’d never do this in America,” but after 9/11, I think it’s more effective than our one-size-fits all screening, and subjecting everyone to barefoot pat-downs. My former husband was detained off a flight from Egypt to Europe, because he had a Jewish name and we were coming from Israel. (He was let go.) On the other hand, in Muslim countries, or much of India, men and women are sent to different lines for airport security — men would NEVER pat down a woman. Usually, women and children are let through without any patting down, while the men get the third-degree. (When women are patted down, it’s by women behind curtains — much more civilized than what we do, which even insults ME, let along women from traditional societies.) All of these countries are very effective at curbing domestic terrorism.

Locally, when cops stop a Mexican in a crappy car in Beverly Hills for a faulty light, it’s not discrimination when 46% of hit-and-runs on the Westside in general are committed by illegals without a license, so this is a legal way of checking for the right to drive. Similarly, a black guy in a Hummer or black Benz or Lexus slowly cruising around Watts, especially in gold chains, is likely to be…

My overall point being, it’s unfortunate but necessary that some people will be looked at with more suspicion for their national origin, but when that leads to anything more than a cursory pre-screening, like detention without charges and even deportation, then we do have a “justice system” run amok. This is the worst way in which the terrorists have hurt us, by creating a mentality in which if there’s even a chance the person is guilty, better safe than sorry.

I have also been told I should fear the evil Japanese, Russians, Muslims and etc. and have yet to have any of these people personally cause me any harm. But I have been tossed in the back of a police car and jail for being in the “wrong part of town” by a government employee. My “favorite” expression is “America love it or leave it”, where is this in the constitution? I love my kids, but you can be damn sure I will question plenty of their actions.

As a person who is old enough to have personally been subjected to “the whites only” rules/signs of the past I am not surprised at all by any of this.