I have always loved lighthouses.

Rugged, steadfast and welcoming to a stranger regardless of the make or color of the sails. Quietly doing their work without acclaim or praise. A beacon during the darkest hours, with beaming lights safely steering vessels through the storms and tribulations of the seas of life.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, NC
Steve Winter, National Geographics

We still remember the fiery speech Al Gore gave last January at Constitution Hall titled "Restoring the Rule of Law."  

"It is imperative that respect for the rule of law be restored."

The Nation noted that Gore's aides were framing the speech as a "call to action in defense of the Bill of Rights and the rule of law."

Well, Al Gore will be speaking again about our Constitution this afternoon on KOOP radio down in Austin, Texas [Where Netroots Nation will be holding our next convention... YEAH!!!]

Links are on the flip...

So, I'm reading through the news this morning and stumble across this article.

It's an analysis of the online betting on the 2008 U.S. election.

I want Hillary Clinton to be the next U.S. president. Or Rudy Giuliani. Al Gore would be the best result, though he probably won't stand. But Mitt Romney or Barack Obama would be a disaster.

Okay then. This guy is wagering on Hilary or Giuliani... but he wants Al Gore and he just kicked Romney and Obama out the door.

So, who is this guy?  Seems he is the chief executive officer of Sports Gaming and he owns European odds comparison websites. Well, huh then.

But, that's not what this diary is about.  It gets more interesting, for you see this guy has just announced that he has doubled-down on Giuliani.

So, we're watching a Republican presidential candidate fall all over himself to out-do JFK on separating his religion, only we find Romney leaves us muddled... like tapioca pudding...as LithiumCola noted.  

No need to rewind. We know what happens when religion trumps law.

It’s a Recipe for Trouble to Allow Government and Religion to Mix says Gore.

What would you think if you read this:

"Why should G*d bless America?"

"Why should G*d stand beside her?"

"The most that we can hope for is G*d’s mercy on our land."

Who says these things? Osama Bin Laden?  

Yes, a rightwing group in Ohio has altered and debased America the Beautiful to reflect their paranoid and dark tunnel vision of our nation.

This rightwing group has taken the liberty to alter the words to the song America to fit their agenda.  These Republicans say that G*d no longer loves America and has abandoned us.  The most we can hope for is... mercy.  Grace has gone right out the window.

I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith.

Is the dkos community Satan or Saint?

"Sympathy for the Devil" lyrics were inspired by the book The Master and Margarita, given to Mick Jagger by his girlfriend. Jagger says it's "about the dark side of man..."

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
What's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the Gods they made

I shouted out
"Who killed the Kennedys?"
When after all
It was you and me.

You and me. Behind our painted masks, we make change. Our pseudonyms on the internet have unique personalities. DailyKos has grown since it provides refuge for our pseudonyms during these chaotic times. DailyKos is not an authoritarian dystopia.

More on the flip...

"Happy New Year" is the lead in this spam-a-lot email making its round-about over the internet. It landed in my email this afternoon and I am still furious after reading it (and responding), so thought I would share it with the community here.

We are, after all, the reality-based community. And, the NOLA fiasco left deep scars. We haven't forgotten.

So, to Colorado and all the snowbound areas, the snow will melt and life will spring back.

There is no comparison with the tragedy of New Orleans. Yet, this "Weather Bulletin" from a county emergency manager in central Colorado lashes out his thoughts on the subject.

[UPDATE: This "Weather Bulletin" is nothing more than an old spam "urban legend" email that circulates from time to time across the internet. Seems someone jazzed it up a little and updated it with current events and then sent it out across the internet again. Snopes has debunked  this.]

And, contrary to many diarists' claims here recently on the issue, it isn't Israel's fault that this has happened. Israel is one small cog in the bigger picture of warfare.

Crossing railroad tracks throughout our lives.  Regardless of the side, the road still leads us to our destination if we follow it and do not allow the trompe l'oeil to halt or impede our journey.

The National Review Online and unscrupulous individuals placed a trompe l'oeil crossing in your path. These "crossed words" --from those without honor in our virtual world --bear similarities to the very incident that took the life of Alexander Hamilton. The National Review Online has engaged in its own Aaron Burr moment.

From all political persuasions across this country, the alarm has been tripped.  The libertarian CATO institute fellow, Gene Healy, referred to this domestic wiretapping use of citizens as "Volunteer Voyeurs."  Dr. Block, a sex educator, viewed the nonconsensual wiretaps as a voyeuristic "Peeping Tom in the Bush."

Or.
Not.

I thought of the Kodak moments over this past year or so that have brought tears from me. And those moments that churned my stomach.  

So, without ado, here are a few of my crying times.  Feel free to add your own.

[WARNING: photographs on the flip. Notice for dialup users.]

That poem has mysteriously appeared in Pakistani English-language schoolbooks for next year.  The first letter of each line spells out "President George W Bush" and the poem is a glowing tribute to w.  One of the stanzas describes him as "Bracing for war, but praying for peace, Using his power so evil will cease..."  Officials say they are "baffled" and cannot explain how it entered into the curriculum in Pakistan.  

An education ministry spokesman argued that the poem was a good description of a true leader - which might explain how it got through the vetting process.

Wolfman brings the blues -- and hope -- to New Orleans

"On Oak Street, the electricity is out and shop windows are still boarded up, but the bluesy guitar riffs blasting out of the Maple Leaf club can signal only one thing.

Wolfman has returned to his favorite haunt."

La patrie, the nation state, now has 191 members as listed at the United Nations.  It would appear that an examination is in order for the term "patriotism."  The vote on the EU constitution has been a source of turmoil recently and nationalism has been a root cause.  The evolution of Iraq's "newly" formed government and its "constitution in works" is another example.  Certainly, the precedents of bush's unilateralism in war (Iraq) and peace (controlling the world's internet) give a certain expediency to the examination of exactly what constitutes an ethical and moral patriot.

More after the flip...

Indeed.  Dahr Jamail should win a Pulitzer.  His article touches on many stories, in Iraq as well as the US. The subjugation of Iraqi citizens to a foreign occupier, the vacillation and "unclear chain of command" from bush that resulted in the debacle of Fallujah and the comparisons to Mai Lai, the heartbreak of a Vietnam-era father whose son has just returned from Iraq, and a touching email from an Iraqi (which gave rise to the title of this diary).

More below the fold:

A Guardian article, No home fit for heroes, portends the difficult years ahead for the true story of our war morals.  As Tim O'Brien said, ... "You can tell a true war story by the way it never seems to end."

More below the fold.