Two Women Bound by Sports, War and Injuries

By JULIET MACUR

Published: April 10, 2005

http://www.times.com/2005/04/10/sports/othersports/10soldiers.html?hp&ex=1113192000&en=6c6e5b10484697c9&ei=5094&partner=homepage

ASHINGTON - For 25 days at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Specialist Danielle Green wondered if anyone could ever understand. But on the 26th day, a nurse told her: "A new female patient came in today. You have a lot in common."

"Really?" Specialist Green said, and the nurse nodded.

Like Specialist Green, the new patient was a 20-something firecracker, a 5-foot-8 former college basketball player, an Army soldier in the military police serving in Iraq.

Like Specialist Green, she also knew how it felt to have a rocket-propelled grenade shoot through her arm. Specialist Green's left hand had been torn off.

In the intensive care unit one floor below, First Lt. Dawn Halfaker lay in a coma, battered and swollen after surviving an ambush. Her right arm was attached to her body by sinews.

The opposite end of the spectrum...tell me, was it worth over 1600 American lives gone, over 10,000 permanently altered and scarred?  Our efforts get protests, and a call to make Islam the National Religion!  Of course, on the flip side, sure their are a few MILLION rabid right wing Christian zealots in our own country who would love to see Christianity made our official religion.

Demonstrators in Iraq Demand That U.S. Leave

By DEXTER FILKINS

Published: April 10, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/international/middleeast/10iraq.html?

AGHDAD, Iraq, April 9 - Tens of thousands of Iraqis marked the second anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein by marching here in the capital on Saturday to demand the withdrawal of American forces. Meanwhile, one of the most lethal insurgent groups warned Iraqis against joining the army or the police force.

Most protesters were followers of Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel Shiite cleric who has led several armed uprisings against American forces but who has recently begun to take part in democratic politics.

The demonstrators gathered at Firdos Square in central Baghdad, where American troops and Iraqis pulled down a huge statue of Mr. Hussein on April 9, 2003, in a moment captured on television cameras and seen around the world. A year ago, the square was sealed off by American soldiers as Mr. Sadr's guerrillas rose up across the country.

Despite the symbolism of the day, the rest of Baghdad was mostly quiet. The demonstration was peaceful, and far fewer people took part than the one million Mr. Sadr's aides had predicted. Representatives of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a leading group of Sunni clerics that has expressed sympathy for the guerrilla insurgency, said its followers had taken part in the march.

The marchers echoed the demands by Mr. Sadr and the Sunni clerics: a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces and the release of Iraqi detainees from American-supervised prisons. Banners held aloft during the march also called for a rapid trial for Mr. Hussein and the elevation of Islam as the official religion of Iraq. One of the main chants of the morning, echoed by thousands, was: "No America, no Saddam! Yes to Islam!"

The rich get richer, the middleclass is forced into ruins, and now THIS BOMBSHELL on TAXES, that hurts not the rich, but once again the middleclass!  Is it time to overhaul the government, and elect some NORMAL AVERAGE PEOPLE to watch out for our interests?

ECONOMIC VIEW

A Tax Increase That Bush Didn't Mention

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: April 10, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/business/yourmoney/10view.html?

ASHINGTON

CYNICS have long predicted that the Bush administration, plagued by budget deficits, will eventually start raising taxes. But now it is becoming clear how it would do so: the alternative minimum tax.

Baffling in its complexity and often bizarre in its impact, the alternative minimum tax is a giant undeclared tax increase that will ensnare tens of millions of moderate-income families in the next several years.

It was created in 1969 to prevent the very rich from using tax deductions to avoid paying a fair share of taxes. But when the deadline for filing income tax returns arrives on Friday, the alternative minimum tax will require 2.9 million families to pay an average of about $6,000 more than what they would owe under traditional calculations

That is just the start. If current law remains unchanged, the alternative minimum tax is expected to wring an extra $33.9 billion from 18 million households in 2006. In 2010, it will rake in an additional $100 billion, and by 2015 an extra $200 billion.

Make no mistake: no one says they want that to happen. But it is one thing to rein in or eliminate the tax itself, and an entirely different matter to give up the money that it would generate.

President Bush has promised to fix the alternative minimum tax as part a fundamental overhaul of the tax code, and he has ordered a bipartisan advisory panel to come up with recommendations by the end of July.

But in giving the panel its marching orders, White House officials made it clear that they are counting on the extra money regardless of what happens to the alternative tax. (can we say SCREWED?)

OK, the Catholics wonder why we are always bringing up the sexual abuse scandel, and get upset at all the little boy jokes.  But, tell us as survivors of sexual abuse what kind of a message the church is sending us when they choose a dethroned Cardinal (Law) who was forced to resign his position in Boston basically because he tried to hide and protect pedophile priests, is chosen to lead such a mass as the one he is leading on Monday to honor the dead Pope...and in light of this, makes me wonder where the Pope's views on molesting children really stood.  Say yes to Justice by saying NO to Law!

Scandal-hit cardinal to lead Mass http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4429253.stm

Cardinal Law apologised for "decisions which led to suffering" A support group for sexual abuse victims has condemned a decision by the Vatican to choose Cardinal Bernard Law to lead a Mass for Pope John Paul II. Cardinal Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston in 2002 following accusations that he covered up sexual abuse of children by priests. Members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests are flying to Rome to protest at Monday's service. Cardinal Law is scheduled to lead one of nine memorial Masses in Rome. Current post David Clohessy, national director of the survivors' network, said: "It's an unbelievably insensitive move that simply rubs salt into the very deep wounds of thousands of abuse victims and American Catholics."