It means you trust you

Crime of the week: “A manager at a fast-food restaurant was shot several times in the arm early Tuesday trying to protect the chili sauce, authorities said.”

Headline of the week: “Italian Doctor Builds New, More Natural Vagina.” (If you build it, they will come.) (Sorry.)

The Malaysian supreme court ruled that, despite a theoretical freedom of religion in the constitution, a woman who converted to Christianity (and renamed herself Lina Joy) is still legally a Muslim whether she likes it or not. Said one of the court’s judges, “She cannot simply, at her own whim [the BBC translation is “at whim and fancy”], enter or leave her religion. She must follow rules.” Which would require her to get a sharia court to issue a certificate of apostasy.

By the way, I so want a certificate of apostasy.

The little detail left out of many of the news stories about this case (which make it sound as if the only issue is how she is identified on her identity card) is that the reason Ms. Joy set out on her seven-year journey through the Malaysian legal system (some of which she had to spend in hiding) because she wanted to marry a fellow Catholic, and “Muslims” are only allowed to marry Muslims.

The Taliban shot down their first foreign helicopter in a couple of years today, killing 5 American military personnel and two non-American passengers.

Bush spoke to a reception of the New Joisey Republican Committee tonight. He said, “I believe you win elections by telling the people what you believe, not necessarily what they want to hear.” So he told them that he believes in tax cuts: “If you believe in cutting taxes, it means you trust you to spend your money better than the government can.”

He believes you have to kill terrorists: “Oh, I know there’s a big debate about how to deal with these folks. I will just tell you my view. You can’t ration [sic] with them. You can’t compromise with them.”

On Iraq: “I had to choose between allowing the sectarian violence that was beginning to get out of hand to continue to foster...” Or even adopt. “I believe that if we allowed the sectarian violence to rage in that young democracy, it could create chaos”. Ya think? “And a knowing enemy realized there was being progress -- progress was being made, and they want to stop it.”

This was Bush before the speech:


This was him after the speech, possibly auditioning for the part of Billy Flynn in a revival of “Chicago.”


And where were the Bush women? Er...


Jenna and Elmo are color-coordinated. Also, if she drinks just one more cosmo, he is so getting lucky tickled tonight.