OMG... Remember Champagne Out of Uma's shoe? Beejoli Shah email about 'having toes sucked by Quentin Tarantino' goes viral

I generally tend to comment more on fascists than fetishists.... but this is insane. Insane and EWWW.

'I'm making a drink and realize the pasty tall fellow pouring orange juice into my glass is the man himself, QT,' she wrote.

'Realizing I kind of have to go for at it this point, in all my nerd glory blurt out: "I'm sure everyone tells you this but I f**king loved Reservoir Dogs.'

She claims that the pair kissed in a kitchen at the party after she told him that she did not like his Kill Bill films.

According to the email, Mr Tarantino said: 'Wow...I don't think anyone has said that to my face about my seminal films.'

She replied: 'Perhaps it's because you call them your seminal films. Shouldn't you wait for someone else to say that?'

Before he said, 'You know, you've got a mouth on you. I like that,' and the Oscar-winning film director put his arm around her and kissed her.

'At some point in our public makeout, Jamie Foxx comes over and without acknowledging me goes, "Yo QT, ready to roll?" Quentin looks at me and says "Want to come to my house?",' Miss Shah wrote in the email.

The couple went back to the director's house where they took pictures of themselves in a photo booth, which Miss Shah attached to the email as 'proof that this story even happened'.

Miss Shah said that she 'started panicking' when Mr Tarantino suggested they head to bed because 'the makeouts were really losing their appeal because you can only be sweated on so much'.

She then included a graphic description of his private parts and claims that Mr Tarantino asked if he could suck her toes while he masturbated.

'And thus began the weirdest ten minutes of my life - having my feet made out with by an Oscar winning filmmaker while he pleasured himself,' she wrote.

'In the morning, I snooped through Quentin's belongings while he was in the bathroom and now know his e-mail address,' she added.

...

Read the full email (WARNING: Explicit content)

Please note that she never mentions washing her feet. EWWW!

More pix and info here. She's even been a contestant on Wheel of Fortune, lol: Beejoli Shah email about 'having toes sucked by Quentin Tarantino' goes viral | Mail Online

Cartoon: "Free Health Care"

LOL... Obama Thinks Campaigning is "Service" ::: Commander In Chief Misspeaks About Soldier Killed in Afghanistan

The big story to come out of this speech is Obama claiming to have awarded a Medal of Honor to a live recipient, but mentioning one that received the award posthumously.

But even nuttier to me is what constitutes his claim of service in the first line. lol.

"Throughout my service, first as a senator and then as a presidential candidate and then as a President, I’ve always run into you guys. And for some reason it’s always in some rough spots.

First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously."

The problem with the second part? FTA:

The problem is, Jared Monti was killed in action in Afghanistan, on June 21, 2006. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, September 17, 2009. President Obama handed the framed medal to his parents, Paul and Janet Monti. He and the First Lady comforted them in the Oval Office following the ceremony.

Commander In Chief Misspeaks About Soldier Killed in Afghanistan

Ron Paul Suing Obama Admin over Libya: "[W]e’re taxing the American people to bomb the very nation that we taxed them to prop up."

Here's the whole thing... an OpEd in the Daily Caller. Money quotes are at the end.

There is no issue more serious than war. Wars result in the loss of life and property. Wars are also expensive and an enormous economic burden.

Our Founders understood that waging war is not something that should be taken lightly, which is why Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the authority to declare war. This was meant to be an important check on presidential power. The last thing the Founders wanted was an out-of-control executive branch engaging in unnecessary and unpopular wars without so much as a Congressional debate.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly the situation we have today in Libya.

That’s why I’ve joined several other members of Congress in a lawsuit against President Obama for engaging in military action in Libya without seeking the approval of Congress.

Of course, in 2007, then-Senator Obama spoke passionately about the need to go after the Bush administration for violating the War Powers Act — the very same thing he’s doing now. In fact, while speaking at DePaul University in October of 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama said the following:

“After Vietnam, Congress swore it would never again be duped into war, and even wrote a new law — the War Powers Act — to ensure it would not repeat its mistakes. But no law can force a Congress to stand up to the president. No law can make senators read the intelligence that showed the president was overstating the case for war. No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as the co-equal branch the Constitution made it.”

We are now taking Barack Obama’s past advice and standing up to the executive branch.

Of course, the War Powers Act is hardly an improvement on the U.S. Constitution because it does allow the president to go to war without the approval of Congress. But President Obama refuses to follow this law.

If a president does go to war unilaterally, the War Powers Act requires him to seek Congressional approval within 60 days. The president can get an extension of up to 90 days if he asks for more time — but President Obama did not do this.

His time is up.

The Obama administration recently issued a 38-page paper stating that Obama is not in violation of the War Powers Act because “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.” Under this argument, President Obama could preemptively launch nuclear weapons against any country in the world without Congressional approval. Obviously, this is not what the Founders intended!

But even aside from violating the Constitution, it makes no economic sense for us to be engaged in yet another war overseas — especially during such tough economic times. For years now, we’ve been sending foreign aid to the very same Libyan government we’re now spending $10 million a day to fight. And it has been recently discovered that the Federal Reserve’s bank bailouts even benefited the Libyan National Bank. Now, we’re taxing the American people to bomb the very nation that we taxed them to prop up.

This makes no sense at all.

The Founding Fathers did not intend for the president to have the power to take our nation to war unilaterally without the approval of Congress.

It’s time for the president to obey the Constitution and put the American people’s national interest first.

Rep. Ron Paul represents Texas’s 14th Congressional District and is a Republican candidate for president.

Ron Paul | Libya | Why I'm suing the Obama administration over Libya | The Daily Caller

UCLA Prof's Book: Liberal Media Distorts News Bias - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)

The liberal bias of the mainstream media tilts so far left that any outlets not in that political lane, like the Drudge Report and Fox News Channel, look far more conservative than they really are, according to a UCLA professor's new book out next month.

In a crushing body blow to the pushers of the so-called "Fox Effect," which claims the conservative media is dragging the left into the center, UCLA political science professor Tim Groseclose in Left Turn claims that "all" mainstream news outlets have a liberal bias in their reporting that makes even moderate organizations appear out of the mainstream and decidedly right-wing to news consumers who are influenced by the slant. [Read Fox's Huckabee slams MSNBC's Matthews, Scarborough over bias.]

"Fox News is clearly more conservative than ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and National Public Radio. Some will conclude that 'therefore, this means that Fox News has a conservative bias,'" he writes in an advance copy provided to Washington Whispers. "Instead, maybe it is centrist, and possibly even left-leaning, while all the others are far left. It's like concluding that six-three is short just because it is short compared toprofessional basketball players."

What's more, he says, "this point illustrates a common misconception about the Drudge Report. According to my analysis, the Drudge Report is approximately the most fair, balanced, and centrist news outlet in the United States. Yet, the overwhelming majority of media commentators claim that it has a conservative bias. The problem, I believe, is that such commentators mistake relative bias for absolute bias. Yes, the Drudge Report is more conservative than the average U.S. news outlet. But it is a logical mistake to use that to infer that it is based on an absolute scale."

And in further analysis sure to enrage critics of conservative media, Groseclose determines that Drudge, on a conservative to liberal scale of 0-100, with 50 being centrist, actually leans a bit left of center with a score of 60.4. The reason: Drudge mostly links to the sites of the mainstream media, with just a few written by Matt Drudge himself. "Since these links come from a broad mix of media outlets, and since the news in general is left-leaning, it should not be surprising that the slant quotient of the Drudge Report leans left," he writes. [Read Poll: Fox, O'Reilly most trusted news sources.]

The author developed a calculation to figure out the "political quotient" to find the bias of mediaoutlets and the average slant of an organization.

Groseclose opens his book quoting a well-known poll in which Washington correspondents declared that they vote Democratic 93 percent to 7 percent, while the nation is split about 50-50. As a result, he says, most reporters write with a liberal filter. "Using objective, social-scientific methods, the filtering prevents us from seeing the world as it actually is. Instead, we see only a distorted version of it. It is as if we see the world through a glass—a glass that magnifies the facts that liberals want us to see and shrinks the facts that conservatives want us to see." [Check out political cartoons about the Democratic Party.]

He adds: "That bias makes us more liberal, which makes us less able to detect the bias, which allows the media to get away with more bias, which makes us even more liberal."

Some key points:

"Every mainstream national news outlet in the United States has a liberal bias."

"Supposedly conservative news outlets are not far right. For instance, the conservative bias of [Fox's] Special Report is significantly less than the liberal bias of CBS Evening News."

"Media bias aids Democratic candidates by about 8 to 10 percentage points in a typical election. I find, for instance, that if media bias didn't exist, John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama 56 percent to 42 percent, instead of losing 53-46." [See editorial cartoons about Barack Obama.]

Perhaps the most useful part of his book is the slant ratings of the media. The numbers are based on a conservative-to-liberal 0-100 rating, with 50 being centrist:

• New York Times-73.7.
• CBS Evening News-73.7.
• NPR Morning Edition-66.3.
• U.S. News & World Report-65.8.
• Drudge Report-60.4.
• ABC Good Morning America-56.1.
• Washington Times-35.4.

Left Turn, How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, published by St. Martin's Press, is due out July 19.

Book: Liberal Media Distorts News Bias - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)

On The Pathetic Palin Email Witch Hunt ::: The Far-Left New York Times Hits Rock Bottom - Douglas MacKinnon - Townhall

That loud crash you just heard off in the distance was the New York Times finally hitting the bottom of the barrel with an embarrassing but expected thump.

Having long ago turned its back on objective journalism to become the mouthpiece for liberal ideology, the Democrat party, and corrupt unions, it was still somewhat of a surprise to see the compromised editors of the paper do something which might cause Anthony Weiner to recoil from its unseemly request.

On Friday, June 10th, the State of Alaska released more than 24,000 of former Governor Sarah Palin’s emails. A Democrat recently told me that some liberals get more satisfaction out of a Palin “mistake,” or in smearing her and her family with more political mud than in the actual killing of Bin Laden. Apparently.

The New York Times -- under the headline “Help Us Review The Sarah Palin E-Mail Records” -- has just asked its readers to help its reporters to “identify interesting and newsworthy emails, people, and events that we may want to highlight.” Interesting and newsworthy being nothing more than liberal code for anything which will inflict further pain and suffering upon Sarah Palin and her family.

At first, I honestly thought it was a joke. Maybe David Letterman and Jon Stewart’s writers got sick of being mindless servants to the left and decided to have some fun at the expense of the Grey Lady. But no. Those writers still do the bidding of the Messiah in the White House and The New York Times is beyond serious in arming its readers with pitch forks and torches as it eagerly sends its virtual mob out in search of the conservative monster. (It should be noted -- again predictably -- that the equally left-wing Washington Post initiated its own Sarah Palin email witch hunt)

Maybe next, The New York Times will ask its readers to become informants against their neighbors or even family members. "Tell us," the next New York Times headline might read, "who is not using "green" light bulbs, who is not driving a hybrid vehicle, who is sending their children to charter schools, who just ate at McDonald's, and who especially on your block or in your neighborhood, still believes in traditional values."

That headline and that request just seems like the next logical step in the New York Times spiraling flight from dignity and into literary dementia.

I don’t seem to remember The New York Times asking its readers to review the 2000 plus pages of Obama’s Healthcare bill, or to review the emails sent from the thuggish Service Employees International Union, or to help it get access to the names on the White House visitor logs team Obama is trying to hide, or to try and find anyone who might be able to prove if Obama actually had a higher G.P.A. in college than Joe Biden.

No. Facts and relevant information no longer interest The New York Times. Not when they can create an army of snitches to try and further harm the former governor of Alaska.

Surely, there must be one person at that paper shocked and humiliated by this request. Just one.

A request that is as pathetic as it is chilling.

The Far-Left New York Times Hits Rock Bottom - Douglas MacKinnon - Townhall Conservative

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (and my man Mamet!) defend Sarah Palin against media onslaught - Yahoo! News

This news is hilarious, it really shows just how far off of the reservation the media is. When you've lost Ashton and Demi...

Is Hollywood softening its opinion on Sarah Palin?

Over the weekend, the former Alaska governor got a surprising show of support from actor Ashton Kutcher, who trashed the media for digging through thousands of emails Palin sent when she was in office.

"As much as I'm not a fan of Sarah Palin I find sifting through her emails repulsive and over reaching media," Kutcher said on Twitter.

The message was re-tweeted by his wife, actress Demi Moore, who added, "So agree!"

Their messages came as Palin got a boost from another potentially surprising source: David Mamet, the famously testy playwright, screenwriter and film director who confessed he's "crazy about" the ex-governor.

In an interview with the Financial Times (and re-printed in Slate), Mamet, who announced during the 2008 election that he was no longer a "brain dead liberal," trashed President Obama, calling his record "abysmal." Asked whom he would prefer as president, Mamet was mum on every single GOP candidate named, except for Palin.

"I am crazy about her," he confessed. "Would she make a good candidate for president? I don't know, but she seems to have succeeded at everything she puts her hand to."

He cited Palin's rise from a PTA parent to governor of Alaska. "That's someone who knows how to work," he says.

I've been reading Mamet's The Secret Knowledge and it is BRILLIANT! Get it now!

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore defend Sarah Palin against media onslaught - Yahoo! News

Ha ha... Yahoo! Reporter Thinks Ron Paul Is "Fringe" For Dropping The "Obscure Subject" of "Monetary Policy"

This is our "media":

Ron Paul, the Texas congressman who has run for president before, did little to shake his image as a fringe candidate by talking too fast and dropping obscure subjects like "Keynesian bubble'' and "monetary policy'' into the conversation.

Just fabulous. No wonder the country is in so much trouble. Our monetary policy is, amongst other things, crushing us, and this reporter thinks it's an obscure, OBSCURE, subject. God help us.

Romney, Bachmann dominate gracious GOP debate - Yahoo! News

Russia says deeply concerned by Golan clashes | Reuters

(Reuters) - Russia said on Monday it was "deeply concerned" by an upsurge in confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians on Sunday that Syria said killed 23 demonstrators and injured 350 in the Golan Heights.

"We express deep concern in relation to the new surge of Israeli-Palestinian confrontations. The death and injury of many peaceful demonstrators in the course of these protests is of particular concern," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Israel accused Syria on Monday of orchestrating the lethal confrontations in which Israeli troops fired on Palestinian protesters who surged against the fortified boundary fence on Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said live Israeli fire had caused casualties and U.N. monitors were "seeking to confirm facts."

Israel contested the Syrian account and said President Bashar al-Assad was trying to shift world attention from the security forces' killing of at least 1,100 Syrians while suppressing anti-government revolts.

Sunday's protest was held to mark the 44th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured the Golan Heights, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip where Palestinians want to establish a state.

Russia says deeply concerned by Golan clashes | Reuters

Celebrity WTF ::: Bar Rafaeli: ‘Dodging IDF paid off big time’ - Israel Culture, Ynetnews

So pretty. And pretty nuts, too.

In her interview, the Israeli model said she was not against army service, even though she never enlisted, having married an acquaintance to evade the draft. The couple was soon divorced.

“I really wanted to serve in the IDF, but I don’t regret not enlisting, because it paid off big time,” she said. “That’s just the way it is, celebrities have other needs. I hope my case has influenced the army.

“Israel or Uganda, what difference does it make? It makes no difference to me. Why is it good to die for our country? What, isn’t it better to live in New York? Why should 18-year-old kids have to die? It’s dumb that people have to die so that I can live in Israel,” Refaeli added.

‘Dodging IDF paid off big time’ - Israel Culture, Ynetnews

It Rocks! ::: Video: The greatest music video ever? Hot Air

This really is one of the most brilliant things I have ever seen.

From Hot Air:

POSTED AT 8:49 PM ON JUNE 1, 2011 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
PRINTER-FRIENDLY

That’s Roger Ebert’s verdict, and for once he might be right. You don’t need to know thebackstory on this to appreciate it but you’ll enjoy it more if you do. Quite simply, Grand Rapids ended up on some magazine’s list of “America’s Dying Cities”; the locals took exception and set out to prove that they’re still very much alive, and this is the result — 10 minutes, featuring a cast of 5,000, paid for with $40,000 that the director and a colleague raised themselves. Displays of civic pride are often rote and occasionally schmaltzy, but this one manages to be genuinely touching. It’s a time capsule from the heartland, certainly the most American music video ever made whether or not it’s the greatest. You’ll enjoy every minute. And trust me, you’ll want to watch every minute, if only to marvel at the coordination.

One take, guys. One. Take.

Here is the original music video, Don McLean live somewhere, lol. Absolutely brilliant performance:





Video: The greatest music video ever? � Hot Air

Hedge Farm! The Doomsday Food Price Scenario Turning Hedgies into Survivalists | The New York Observer

On the rare occasion that New Yorkers talk about farming, it's usually something along the lines of what sort of organic kale to plant in the vanity garden at the second house in the Adirondacks. But on a recent afternoon, The Observer had a conversation of a different sort about agricultural pursuits with a hedge fund manager he'd met at one of the many dark-paneled private clubs in midtown a few weeks prior. "A friend of mine is actually the largest owner of agricultural land in Uruguay," said the hedge fund manager. "He's a year older than I am. We're somewhere [around] the 15th-largest farmers in America right now."

"We," as in, his hedge fund.

It may seem a little odd that in 2011 anyone's thinking of putting money into assets that would have seemed attractive in 1911, but there's something in the air-namely, fear. The hedge fund manager and others like him envision a doomsday scenario catalyzed by a weak dollar, higher-than-you-think inflation and an uncertain political climate here and abroad.

The pattern began to emerge sometime in 2008. "The Hedge Fund Manager Who Bought a Farm," read the headline on one February 2008 Times of London piece detailing a British hedge fund manager's attempt to play off the rising prices of grains in order to usurp local farmland. A Financial Times piece two months later began: "Hedge funds and investment banks are swapping their Gucci for gumboots." It detailed BlackRock's then-relatively new $420 million Agriculture Fund, which had already swept up 2,800 acres of land.


Even Michael Burry, the now-defunct Scion Capital founder and star protagonist of Michael Lewis' The Big Short-who bet against the housing bubble in 2008 with credit default swaps to enormous profit-gave a rare interview on Bloomberg TV last year, explaining that he's thrown his hat into "productive agriculture land with water on site" as it's going to be "very valuable in the future." (Like most of those asked to comment for this story to The Observer, Burry declined to discuss his investments in farmland.)

Three years later, the purchase of farmland both in America and abroad by outside investors has increased-so much so that in February, Thomas Hoenig, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, warned against the violent possibilities of a farmland bubble, telling the Senate Agriculture Committee that "distortions in financial markets" will catch the U.S. by surprise again. He would know, because he's seeing it in his backyard: Kansas and Nebraska reported farmland prices 20 percent above the previous year's levels and are on pace to double values in four years. A study commissioned by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and released in January estimated the amount of private capital currently committed to farmland and agricultural infrastructure at $14 billion. It also estimated that future investments will "dwarf" what's currently being thrown into land, by two to three times. Further down, the study makes a conservative projection that the amount of capital potentially entering the sector over the next decade will fly past $150 billion.

Excerpted: Hedge Farm! The Doomsday Food Price Scenario Turning Hedgies into Survivalists | The New York Observer

Muslims Surround Church in Egypt, Prevent Its Reopening

(AINA) -- On the morning of May 19 two Coptic priests went to St. Mary and St. Abraham Church in Ain Shams and opened it together with some of the Coptic residents, but later in the day thousands of Muslims surrounded the church to protest its opening, hurled stones at the church building and the Copts, who responded by throwing stones. The army and the police stood there watching and did not intervene (video).

Unable to secure the church, the army and police closed it and arranged for a "reconciliation" meeting between the Coptic priest and the Salafi sheikhs. They also arrested eight Copts, one of them 13-years old, and three Muslims. They were all charged with rioting, violence and causing injury to citizens. Three Copts were also charged with having cartridges but no guns and one 15-year-old boy with possessing two knives. The 3 Muslims were charged with throwing stones at the army.

Father Filopateer Gameel, one of the organizers of the Maspero sit-in, said that during a meeting with the Minister of Interior he was told he cannot choose the churches to be reopened because it was all "planned with the Salafis and the security authorities so that when we go, there will be no problems." He confirmed the minister had himself suggested the names of the three churches to be reopened.

The "reconciliation" session was held in a tent by the Islamist imam Kerdassi, the main opponent of the reopening of the church, who also recently built a mosque facing the church. Next to the tent was another one hosting Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi sheikhs, among them the renowned Salafi sheikh Hassan and over 3000 guests all chanting "Islamic, Islamic."

The session lasted for 5-hour, and was attended by sheikhs, imams, priests, lawyers and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, in which the Muslims insisted the church was a factory and the Christians explained that it was a church, although it has no dome or bell, and has been used as a place for worship and has a consecrated alter.

The Coptic diocese bought the building, which used to be a clothes factory, in 2004 and used it for worship until November 22, 2008, when it was closed by State Security after nearly 3000 Muslims surrounded the church, pelting it with stones and terrorizing thousands of parishioners inside.

Excerpted. More here: Muslims Surround Church in Egypt, Prevent Its Reopening

Sinéad O'Connor: Happy Birthday to Bob Dylan, the Sexiest Man in the Universe

It's a rollicking read... but I love them both so much. And it's filled with Jesus.

=)

Happy Seventieth, Bob! smooch!

Dear Zimmy

It's your gorgeous birthday next week. You're three years younger than my father (whom I hope never reads this!). That's a bit of a head-wrecker.

It is a fact that I wish to high heaven that my father's father had met my mother's whatever-it-is earlier. Then I would have been old enough to tell you all this in a more delicious setting. My beloved brother Joseph, who introduced me to you, passed an invitation to me from the Mail to write something about you because next Tuesday is your birthday.

I said, 'But I'm a moron! What will I say?' He said, 'You could make it like a letter to Bob. To say the oul' happy birthday'.

So... Bobby, or R.J or Ray, or Anything...Here is my birthday little thing for you.

This week when everyone is writing and talking and thinking about your birthday, they're all gonna go on about the usual stuff.

'Prophet'.

Blah blah.

'Voice of a generation.'

Blah blah. Blah blah. Blah blah.

All true I'm sure... But no one ever says: 'Holy Mother of God! That Dylan fellow is an extremely adjectival sexy adjectival m.a.n. so he is for himself!'

It's about time all the ladies, and I mean ALL the ladies, need to tell everyone exactly where it's at concerning the deliciousness of Robert Zimmerman.

Drop. Dead. Gorge. Us.

Yes, sir! THE sexiest man that ever stalked the face of this earth.

'Tis lucky for you, boyo, that you're away over there in America. Sure there's barely a woman in the universe who could keep her mitts off you! Thanks be to God that flights are not cheap here in Ireland or you'd be wise to run. And also to follow Gaddafi's example by employing fake Bob Dylans, so no-one will know which one is actually you. Incidentally, should you decide you want to follow Gaddafi's example by employing all-female body guards, I hope you will consider me. Please don't ask for a reference though. I wouldn't come up looking very good.

I once worked with a lady who'd once worked with you. She said you're just crazy about the ladies. I took her in my arms and danced with delight. Hurray!

This means I'm not the only person on earth who thinks you're a ride. Despite your main feature being sexeliciousness, you're also not a bad oul' sayer of songs. And by the way, there's something the 13-year-old me wants to say to you: Thank you for making Christian music sexy. Poor God. Until you made Slow Train Coming, he was suicidal. From listening to terrible religious music.

I mean, have you ever seen Irish dancing? It's the un-sexiest thing one could see. We only dance from the knee down. Keeping everything else tight as a board. Arms stiff at our sides. For fear we might slip into the world of sensuality.

People say, and I hope it's not so, that you didn't 'stand by' Slow Train Coming. I don't know what they mean exactly. And I don't even care. Either way you could never have known what it was like in Ireland before that album tore down the walls which separated God and sex. You couldn't have known the effect the record would have. And that's appropriate. Why should you know?

I was 13 the year it came out. Joe, my brother, brought it home.

I was just beginning to wonder what kind of person I wanted to be. And what kind of woman I wanted to be. And what kind of artist I wanted to be. There weren't many options open to a female like me. I would either die or go to jail if I continued along the path that was given me.

But when I heard you singing those songs on Slow Train Coming, and when I saw the drawing of the train on the sleeve, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

So Rabbi, from you I know I gotta serve somebody. I know I'm a precious angel. I know God believes in me. I know I'm gonna change my way of thinking. I know I'm gonna make myself a different set of rules. I know I'm gonna put my best foot forward, stop being influenced by fools.

I saw you at Slane when I was like 16. I couldn't believe I would actually see you in the flesh. I had a boyfriend at the time. Only reason we were together was we were both obsessed with you. Sadly we never did really anything but talk about you! Of course I could never have dreamed of telling him you were way sexier than him. Am I bad? I certainly hope so.

Santana played before you. When you came on you had on Oompa Loompa orange make-up. So it wasn't only musically or spritually that you were ahead of your time. You foresaw fake tan! And the dreaded RTE make-up department. [C'mon, Ryan, man, let's just come out and admit it, they've not been the Mae West over the years. Though I do grant you they're not as woeful as TV3 - I'm forever tweeting Vincent Browne's show over the make-up. They have him looking like Bob at Slane.]

I think you also had on loads of black khol eyeliner. Very strange sight. Gorgeous nonetheless, obviously. But strange.

Then I briefly actually met you twice. Backstage at two festivals, there were loads of us playing. I must have seduced your manager with sexual bribes, I can't remember, but there I was in your dressing room. Just you and your tour manager.

You asked would I like a drink. I said yes, and though I can't stomach alcohol I sipped away and pretended I wasn't suppressing the desire to let you have a look at what I ate for lunch. You did a lot of pacing up and down. I remember thinking 'Holy mother of the divine lord Krishna, who could perform after drinking this?'

The third and final time our paths crossed was on that infamous evening at your tribute concert in Madison Square Garden, an evening which heaved with consequence. In the week or so before that show I had done an incendiary acapella version of a Bob Marley (the other 'Bob') song called War on Saturday Night Live. I changed some words and made it about child abuse instead of racism. And at the end of the song I tore up a picture of the then Pope, JP2. No smirking please, Bob - when mentioning 'the incident' one must always look very serious.

Then, soon after that, I went shopping to find an outfit for your upcoming show. The decision I made was so wrong - a turquoise jacket and skirt suit which should have been worn by a very old woman...and with a hideous gold thing on the jacket. Unforgivable. I look at the footage of the show now and I am appalled. What was I thinking? Perhaps I should have slipped you a note before the show, explaining 'the incident' to you, but in the terror of my image in my dressing room mirror I guess I forgot.

So I walked on stage that night and half the audience cheered and the other half booed. Was it the Saturday Night Live fallout or had I just totally made the wrong wardrobe choice?

Seriously though, backstage afterwards, you looked at me confused as if to ask me what I had done to upset people so much. Instead of singing I Believe in You, as planned, I had screamed out the Bob Marley song instead. But it felt appropriate for me to scream while I had the chance. And I knew, if you understood, you wouldn't mind that I used the stage you gave me to stand for the God you also gave me. I hope your questions from that night have since been answered for you by the various revelations concerning the spiritual condition of the catholic church. In God's wide world. If I had simply sung I Believe in You that night my voice would have been drowned in the noise of the opposing spiritual forces in the room.

I had to do what I did in Madison Square Garden. Even if it meant being treated like a mental case for years after.

The God I believed in was the one you brought off the pages of scriptures into my life. Not the one those bored black-and-white-wearing priests droned on about whilst flicking bits of dust off their altars in the middle of the consecration of the Host.

Even if they showed me to the door. And said don't come back no more cuz I didn't be like they'd like me to. Even if I walked out on my own. A thousand miles from home, I didn't feel alone. Cuz I believe in you.

I believe in you, even through the tears and the laughter. I believe in you even though we be apart. I believe in you even on the morning after. Though the earth may shake me, though my friends forsake me, this feeling's still here in my heart.

Don't let me stray too far. Keep me where you are. So I will always be renewed. And Lord, what you've given me today is worth more than I could pay. And no matter what they say, I believe in you...

But, I digress, Bob. I only meant to tell you you're gorgeous. So have seventy kisses for yourself on Tuesday.

Sinead

Sin�ad O'Connor: Happy Birthday to Bob Dylan, the Sexiest Man in the Universe

Supercreep ::: Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home

INDIANAPOLIS | Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

"We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest."

David said a person arrested following an unlawful entry by police still can be released on bail and has plenty of opportunities to protest the illegal entry through the court system.

The court's decision stems from a Vanderburgh County case in which police were called to investigate a husband and wife arguing outside their apartment.

When the couple went back inside their apartment, the husband told police they were not needed and blocked the doorway so they could not enter. When an officer entered anyway, the husband shoved the officer against a wall. A second officer then used a stun gun on the husband and arrested him.

Professor Ivan Bodensteiner, of Valparaiso University School of Law, said the court's decision is consistent with the idea of preventing violence.

"It's not surprising that they would say there's no right to beat the hell out of the officer," Bodensteiner said. "(The court is saying) we would rather opt on the side of saying if the police act wrongfully in entering your house your remedy is under law, to bring a civil action against the officer."

Justice Robert Rucker, a Gary native, and Justice Brent Dickson, a Hobart native, dissented from the ruling, saying the court's decision runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"In my view the majority sweeps with far too broad a brush by essentially telling Indiana citizens that government agents may now enter their homes illegally -- that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances," Rucker said. "I disagree."

More here: Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home

Christians beginning to flee Egypt

Fearful for their safety, some Coptic Christians have begun to flee Egypt, according to John Pontifex, spokesman for Aid to the Church in Need.

Offering an overview of recent violence against Christians in the Cairo suburb of Imbaba, Pontifex told Vatican Radio that “there is this great fear and great uncertainty that many people feel about the future for Christianity in an area where all the time there are reports coming through of Christians saying, ‘We want to leave, we do not feel safe here.’”

Only 0.3% of Egypt's 79.1 million people are Catholic, according to Vatican statistics; in all, an estimated 9% of Egyptians are Christian, most of them Coptic Orthodox.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Minority Christians fear future of Egypt (Vatican Radio)
• Catholic church attacked in Cairo (CWN, 5/10)
• 3 churches attacked in Egypt; 12 dead, over 200 injured (CWN, 5/9)
• Coptic Orthodox Church (CNEWA)
• Coptic Catholic Church (CNEWA)

Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : Christians beginning to flee Egypt