That's because Stewart was a Wiccan, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to allow a symbol of the Wicca religion -- a five-pointed star within a circle, called a pentacle -- to be inscribed on U.S. military memorials or grave markers.

Wicca is recognized federally as a religion. As the article mentions, last year the requirement for a religion to have a centrally located authority has been lifted. So why can't the pentacle be inscribed on the grave of a soldier who gave his life for his country, and even had "Wiccan" on his dogtags. But gods forbid we offend the Christians with a symbol that they don't like in the graveyard.

Getting pretty sick of this.

Fallen Soldier Gets a Bronze Star but No Pagan Star

"Somebody asked George H.W. Bush Monday about the criticism of his son's handling of Hurricane Katrina, and the former president said that the critics ought to tell it to his wife -- and that they ought to don a flak jacket before trying. But this morning, it's Barbara Bush herself who might want to think about some protective clothing, at least metaphorically speaking.

The former first lady toured the Astrodome Monday, and along the way she opined that many of the refugees from New Orleans were so poor to begin with that they ought to be pretty happy with their temporary digs in Houston. "What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," Barbara Bush said in comments first aired on the public radio program "Marketplace" and reprinted by Editor & Publisher. "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

In the midst of that last line, you can hear the former first lady chuckling."

There just aren't words, really, to say how tactless that was.

Barbara Bush on those lucky refugees

The story of a Sunni girl from Fallujah selling herself in a Damascus nightclub represents startling new fallout from the Iraq war, one human rights organizations and experts are only beginning to address. An increasing number of young Iraqi women and girls who fled Iraq during the turmoil are turning to prostitution in Syria, although there are no reliable statistics on how many girls are involved. That might partly explain why so little reporting has been done on the topic. For journalists and human rights workers, securing contact with Iraqi sex workers in Syria is difficult and dangerous because the topic is taboo.

This is an interesting article around the desparation that many Iraqi refugees are feeling, but it's not really just because of the war. One person quoted in the article said it pretty clearly - prostitution isn't new, there's just a lot more of it. Many of the economically pillaged countries with high populations and few jobs face this kind of problem every day. Go to Bangkok, Singapore, Shanghai or Beijing and see how prevalent prostitution is there, and not just locals - the bars and clubs are full of women from the Phillipines, Indonesia, Russia, Vietname, you name it. The war is certainly the biggest factor in the economic depression that Iraq is experiencing, but ending the fighting won't solve the problem, either.

Unveiling Iraq's teenage prostitutes

] But there must be something different in the way that the
] Democrats are blocking Bush's nominees, right? The
] Republicans say that Democrats are doing is
] "unprecedented."
]
]
] Oh, yes they do. Just the other day on Fox News, Utah
] Sen. Orrin Hatch, the former chairman of the Senate
] Judiciary Committee, proclaimed: "We've never had a
] filibuster of judges in the history of this country." In
] a myth vs. fact sheet, the Republican National Committee
] says that "having to overcome a filibuster (or obtaining
] 60 votes) on judicial nominees is unprecedented."
]
]
] But that's not a fact. In 1968, Republicans led a
] filibuster against Lyndon Johnson's nomination of Abe
] Fortas as chief justice. And that isn't the only
] Republican attempt to filibuster a judicial nominee in
] recent history. During the Clinton years, the
] Congressional Research Service says, Democrats were
] forced to bring cloture motions on six judicial nominees.
] While the existence of a cloture motion doesn't always
] mean that a filibuster is in effect, in at least some
] instances it has meant just that: In 2000, Frist himself
] voted to support a filibuster against Richard Paez,
] Clinton's nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
] Ninth Circuit.

This article presents a very good assessment of just what can and can't happen along the lines of the "Nuclear Option." It's not as cut and dry as many would think.

Everything you wanted to know about the Nuclear Option

] He's just beginning his teens, but I've been house
] sitting long enough to watch him go from Harry Potter
] toys to Lego Mindstorms and Playstation 2. So on Saturday
] night when I arrived to the empty house, I got a beer and
] went into his bedroom to check out his toys. There were
] immediate telltale signs of "young man" everywhere... but
] there were some Legos left around on his toy chest. I
] looked once and was on my way out, but then noticed the
] configuration of the Lego assembly. It was a compound.
] And in the back, was a child's version of Abu Ghraib.
] Stunned, I took photos.

You have to wonder what made the kid decide to recreate this area. What kids (early teens) watch enough news for this to be ingrained in his mind as something to admire? Maybe it's a way of understanding what happened? I can only hope that it's not because a mentor has idolized what has happened there.

Dolemite

Lego Abu Ghraib

] Last night, at the People's Choice Awards, "Fahrenheit
] 9/11" was named the Best Movie of the Year. It was a
] stunning moment for us. And, somewhere inside the Bush
] White House, someone there must have been stunned, too.
]
] 21 million people voted in the People's Choice Awards.
] They chose our film over "Shrek 2," "Spiderman 2" and
] "The Incredibles." If we can beat that many superheroes,
] surely we can survive the next four years.

I hope we can, anyway, and still have something resembling our rights when we're done.

Video file of acceptance on page.

Fahrenheit 9/11 wins People's Choice Award for Best movie

The first thing sworn to during a (US) Presidential inauguration is to uphold the Constitution of the United States. This page has linked pictures to the particular interpretations of said Constitution during the first term of Dubya.

-Dolemite

Informed Comment

Ho, ho, ho!!! That's right, it's the time of year when good little boys and girls get presents from Santa in their stockings and bad little boys and girls get lumps of coal. For every $100 donated to EFF, Public Knowledge and IPac in December, Downhill Battle will send one lump of coal to the RIAA and MPAA.

Makes me want to take up a collection at the office, it warms my heart so.

Lumps of Coal for the RIAA and MPAA

] U.S. veterans from the war in Iraq are beginning to show
] up at homeless shelters around the country, and advocates
] fear they are the leading edge of a new generation of
] homeless vets not seen since the Vietnam era.

Unacceptable.

Homeless Iraq vets showing up at shelters - (United Press International)

This is a horrible story to hear, but the irony in the naming of the girl involved is something I just had to point out. Make sure you never name your children after tragic plays.

A man doused his girlfriend and three small children with gasoline inside a car and set them on fire early Wednesday as he drove, authorities said. All five died after the car crashed in flames.

Residents reported hearing the crash and seeing two adults engulfed in flames, stumbling across a road near Bonny Lake, a small town east of Tacoma.

Antigone Monique Allen, 18, who had recently filed an assault complaint against the 24-year-old man, survived for about nine hours at a Seattle hospital, sheriff's Detective Ed Troyer said. She managed to tell investigators what happened before she died.

Horrible Irony - Careful what you name your children