News Flash From Italy: Men Like Seeing Naked Women!

ROME (Reuters) Mon Jul 11, 9:15 AM ET - Most Italians think nude sunbathing is perfectly natural and don't mind crossing paths with bottomless beach-goers -- even when those bottoms are unsightly, survey results released Sunday said.

While topless sunbathing is widely practiced in Italy, bottoms are usually required and nudists can face fines of more than 500 euros ($595) on some beaches, the Italian Naturalist Federation said.

But the federation said a poll it commissioned from a mainstream media outlet found nearly 70 percent of those surveyed said they would sunbath nude if everyone else did it. More than 80 percent said nudism was not erotic, but natural.

Women were more frequently bothered by nude sunbathing than men. Just over 40 percent of women said they did not like seeing other naked females on the beach, while just 5 percent of men shared their opinion about nude women.

The survey found nearly two-thirds of men said they weren't bothered by nude male sunbathers.

When it came to unattractive or "brutto" sunbathers, most of those surveyed in the country that champions physical beauty said they didn't object to seeing them naked either.

Only about 16 percent said they were vexed by unattractive women nudists and 9.7 percent objected to unsightly men.

The Federation said the survey would bolster their hopes of getting more beaches set aside for nude sunbathing.
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Pope Benedict XVI Does Not Like Harry Potter And The Book's Ability To Warp Formative Young Catholic Minds

It seems that Pope Benedict is no fan of the Harry Potter series of books. He apparently wrote a series of letters in response to reports that Pope John Paul II was a fan of the books...



















Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Vatican City March 7, 2003

Esteemed and dear Ms. Kuby!

Many thanks for your kind letter of February 20th and the informative book which you sent me in the same mail. It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.

I would like to suggest that you write to Mr. Peter Fleedwood, (Pontifical Council of Culture, Piazza S. Calisto 16, I00153 Rome) directly and to send him your book.

Sincere Greetings and Blessings,

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Photo: Claire And Del In Victoria

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The Coast Guard Escorted Me Home This Weekend

Keelin and I spent this weekend on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. We sailed on the Washington State ferry from Anacortes to Sidney, B.C. and drove up the island coast to Point No Point, near where the Pacific meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In Seattle, I live a couple of blocks from Puget Sound, which feels like a bay, but at Point No Point you get actual waves, rocky shores, and waves more like the ocean. It is an amazing, pristine spot. The next two days we spent in Victoria. . .a town which impresses me more every time I am there. . .mainly because I associate it with seeing my daughter Claire, but also because it is a really nice city and I like Canadians. We ate outside at a restaurant, walked all over town, and stopped to watch a Zydeco show at the folk festival.

On the way home, moments after The Elwha pulled out, the Captain announced we would have an escort on the ride home. No, not Orcas or Grey whales, but the United States Coast Guard. The escort was due to "the heightened security conditions" following the London Tube and bus bombings.

The ferry was escorted all the way from Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada to Anacortes, WA, USA by two boats, one on our port side, and one starboard. One boat said U.S. Coast Guard; the other, U.S. Border Patrol.

They were nimble, fast boats and stayed very close. Whenever we passed another boat, whether a cabin cruiser or sailboat or yacht or barge, the Coast Guard moved between us and the boat. The Coast Guard boats spent a lot of time doing circles/doughtnuts and looked like they were having a grand old time. In retrospect, those doughnuts were a sort of Maginot Line.

Everyone was a little baffled as to what they could do to save us if a plane ran into us, or if someone on board had a bomb. It seemed a little silly. We seemed to have been briefly profiled as our cars pulled in, but compared to air travel, the security was meager.

We later realized they must have been armed with rockets or some kind of heavy artillery in case a boat tried to ram or bomb us. Needless to say, we made it back in one piece. I wonder if they are escorting the Superferries to Bainbridge Island that carry four times more people, and twice as many cars?
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White House Stonewalling Leak Questions

The White House is changing their story, and swinging from full discslosure about the leak of the CIA operatives's name. Yesterday, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan stonewalled all questions, backing off from his (and The President's) previous defense of Karl V. Rove. And backing off from POTUS's earlier statements to reporters, like this one he made on Sept. 30, 2003, to reporters at the University of Chicago [1].

Q. Do you think that the Justice Department can conduct an impartial investigation, considering the political ramifications of the C.I.A. leak, and why wouldn't a special counsel be better?

A. Yes. Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.

And so I welcome the investigation. I - I'm absolutely confident that the Justice Department will do a very good job. There's a special division of career Justice Department officials who are tasked with doing this kind of work; they have done this kind of work before in Washington this year. I have told our administration, people in my administration to be fully cooperative.

I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.

Q. Have you talked to Karl and do you have confidence in him …

A. Listen, I know of nobody - I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.

[1] Source: Federal News Service

Senator Clinton Compares POTUS To Alfred E. Neuman

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The Aspen Times/Associated Press today reported that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ripped into President Bush in a speech Sunday, saying he has damaged the economy by heaping tax cuts onto the rich. Click on the link above to read the full article.

"I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said, referring to the Mad magazine character with his catch-phrase "What, me worry?"
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The "Indian Head" Test Pattern

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Do you remember falling asleep in front of the television, and maybe being awakened by that loud tone? You may think there is nothing to watch on those five hundred channels now, but in the 50's and 60's, you received only one to four stations, all of which stopped broad-casting sometime around midnight. When stations "signed off," or, quit broadcasting actual programs in the old days, that is, in my youth, they would air a five minute program, called Sermonette, or Moment Of Faith, followed by the National Anthem and that obnoxious hearing test tone, playing over the famous Indian Head test pattern.

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President George W. Bush Speaks About Universal Values

"The relations with, uhh — Europe are important relations, and they've, uhh — because, we do share values. And, they're universal values, they're not American values or, you know — European values, they're universal values. And those values — uhh — being universal, ought to be applied everywhere."

— POTUS George W. Bush, at a press conference with European Union members, June 20, 2005, in Washington
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More Supreme Court Positioning By Sen. Specter

The New York Times reported this morning that Senate Judiciary Committee chair Senator Arlen Specter has speculated that President Bush should name Justice O'Connor as Chief Justice. That doesn't seem all that likely, since O'Connor was well-aware of an incipient movement to pressure the White House to draft her should Rehnquist leave the court. She retired anyway.

Sen. Specter's statement indicate that he is clearly not taking directions from the White House--which should lead to an interesting confirmation hearing or two. Republicans don't seem to be able to keep Specter on the reservation any longer.
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Top Ten Internet Downloads 1995-2005

CNET, one of the biggest application download sites on the internet recently listed its top ten downloads of the last ten years:

ICQ
Winamp
Firefox
Napster
WinZip
iTunes
Ad-aware
Skype
RealPlayer
Adobe Acrobat Reader
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Poem: Optimism

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In our tarpaper shacks,
We build crystal dream palaces
To colonize
When our ships come in.
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Oh S**t! - Rehnquist To Retire? - Selecting The Next Chief Justice And Associate Of SCOTUS

Maybe the craziest part of this whole SCOTUS drama is that The President may actually nominate Attorney General Alberto Gonzales despite the massive, and apparently deep opposition from his own right-wing political base. And maybe the next weirdest part is how the Democrats have claimed Justice O'Connor as one of our own. How far we have sunk!


Robert Novak today speculated that

"Conservatives who have spent more than a decade planning for this moment to change the balance of power on the Supreme Court are reeling from blows delivered by two dissimilar political leaders: Edward M. Kennedy and George W. Bush. Sen. Kennedy has succeeded with the news media in establishing a new standard of 'mainstream conservatism' for a justice. President Bush has put forth ''friendship'' as a qualification for being named to the high court.

In the same article, he writes

"Adding to the tension is word from court sources that ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist also will announce his retirement before the week is over. That would enable Bush to play this game: Name one justice no less conservative than Rehnquist, and name Gonzales, whose past record suggests he would replicate retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on abortion and possibly other social issues. Thus, the present ideological orientation of the court would be unchanged, which would suit the left just fine."

Who knows how all this will play out? Will it help moderate POTUS's choices? Will he buckle on Gonzales? Will he select an old centrist and a young redneck?
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