New Photographs of Old Ghosts

What's "Honorary Cash Cow" When Translated Into Hebrew? Madonna has been promoted to the highest non-ordained position in the Church of Kabbalah. According to one source, "Her teachers think she has reached the pinnacle of spiritual understanding." The pinnacle of spiritual understanding? Just like the Buddha or Jesus? Sure.

More Diplomatic Genius From The White House "George Bush has banned Camilla Parker Bowles from the White House - because she is a divorcee. The unprecedented snub has effectively sabotaged Charles's plan to take his bride on a Royal tour of America later this year. The trip would have been the pair's first official tour as a married couple. But the US President - a notoriously right-wing Christian and reformed alcoholic - told aides it was "inappropriate" for him to be playing host to the newly-weds, who are both divorcees. The decision was made even though the late President Ronald Reagan was divorced."

If You Really Want To Help, Don't A group calling itself "the Minuteman Project" is so intent on "protecting our country from an invasion by people from all over the world across our southern border with Mexico" that they are gathering around 500 wackos to "assist" the US Border Patrol in detaining illegal immigrants for one month in Arizona. The government is understandibly weary of a mass of patriotic nutcases with a vague mission and equally vague stance on carrying guns. The patrols will start on April 1st. Seriously.

Our Heroes Tortured By Evildoers Can't Get Money From Evildoers Who Are Now Heroes, Unlike The Evildoers Who Were Tortured By Our Heroes. I Think. "The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist. The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime. The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money. The case abounds with ironies. It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Convention. Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States. But the American victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says."

-The Sikh Geek